Sea Dreams
by rhosinthorn
Summary: In the beginning, they were just dreams. But they're about to become reality. Konoha never really felt like home to Sakura, so when Uzushio called it was easy to respond. It may be just rubble now, but Uzushio and her people are too stubborn to let it stay that way.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** And this begins my foray into writing for the Naruto fandom! _Sea Dreams_ is strongly, strongly influenced by black. k. kat 's _Stormborn_ (if you haven't read it, go read it now and come back to this!) though I've tried to add my own twist to the idea of reviving Uzushio. Additionally, all credit goes to her for changing my perspective of characters who will be appearing eventually and making me look underneath the underneath with many of them.

Be warned, most of this chapter is rehash of the canon plotline up to the Sasuke pursuit arc, with additions to set the stage for the rest of the story. I'm going to try to keep a weekly updating schedule, so check back _next Saturday_ for the next chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter One:**

Despite having never left Konoha, Sakura dreamed of the sea.

Every night, without fail, she fell asleep to the lullaby of the waves that would fill her dreams. The mournful sound of the seagull's cry would rouse her in the morning, the sea fading away to be replaced by the brown and green of Konoha's forests.

She knew that it was abnormal to dream of the same thing over and over again. Even for shinobi, reoccurring dreams, unless there was trauma involved, were unheard of. But she couldn't bring herself to say anything, afraid that people wouldn't understand.

Her dreams were _precious_ to her.

They showed her a village, bright and shining as it seemed to rise from the sea, its white walls gleaming under a bright summer's sun. At sunset, the fading light would catch on the roofs _just so_ and set the entire thing ablaze in an explosion of red and gold. She had seen it all, winter and summer, storm and sun, waves turbulent and peaceful. Every night the dream was different, for all that it showed the same thing.

But there were never any people.

* * *

Because she was curious, and because a part of her whispered _I belong there_ , she spent months trying to figure out where this village was. Thumbing through her textbooks, she leaped at the opportunity to do a report on Kiri when Iruka-sensei assigned them all reports on the other Hidden Villages. Combing through books in the library, asking questions to the Academy teachers and her parents, she presented her teacher with a thick binder, complete with rough sketches, a detailed history (the unclassified version anyway), and analysis of its social, economic, and political muscle.

It was impressive for an eight year old, and he was liberal with his praise, if a little shocked by her devotion to the topic.

Yet she walked away unsatisfied, because every bit of research she had done only served to confirm what she had feared. Kirigakure was not _her_ village. It was inland, not directly on the coast like her village.

At home that afternoon, she sulked in her usual chair at the kitchen table as she did her homework, her grandmother working on dinner preparations in the background. As she was getting older, her parents were taking more missions, presumably because she was old enough to need less supervision. When they were away overnight, her grandmother came and stayed with her.

As she cut up vegetables at the counter, her grandmother asked: "How did your sensei like your report?"

"He said it was good," she mumbled, scratching out the place where she had made a mistake in one of her calculations and beginning to write the correction.

"I thought you'd be happier, but you're sulking like he failed you for it."

"It's just...it's not the village I wanted to do," Sakura replied listlessly, turning to the next problem.

"Which village is that?" Her grandmother had travelled a bit when she was younger, and her grandfather, a fairly prosperous merchant, was still alive. She usually was able to keep up with Sakura when they were talking about history and geography, even if she wasn't a shinobi.

Sakura sighed. "I don't know its name," she admitted. "The only thing I know about it is that it's by the sea. Since Suna's a desert, and Iwa and Kumo are north, I thought it could be Kiri. Turns out it wasn't."

"Villages by the sea, hmm?" the rhythmic sound of the knife against the cutting board continued as her grandmother hummed in thought. "Well, there's Kirigakure, but you said it wasn't that one. It could be one of the villages on the coast of Fire, but if you thought it might be Kiri, it's probably to big to be one. Wave's never really had big villages...I guess the only other option might be Uzushio."

"Uzushio?" Sakura echoed. Something about the name _felt_ right.

"In Whirlpool," her grandmother elaborated. "It sat right at the junction where the river met the sea. For a while, it was the largest port between Lightning, Fire, and Water Countries. A lot of the seafaring trade passed through its waters, so the Uzushio shinobi were often hired to protect them from pirates and the like."

"Why don't we hear about it, if it's that important?"

"Because it's gone." The knife thudded angrily into the cutting board, but didn't break its rhythm. "Towards the end of the Second War, someone took it into their head to destroy Uzushio. They razed it to the ground, supposedly, with the only survivors being those who had been away on missions or who had run away from the village instead of barricading themselves inside it."

"Supposedly?" The grief that had begun to sweep over Sakura at hearing that _her_ village was gone abated at the brief flash of hope.

"Nobody ever went to the ruins, after Uzushio fell. Not even a contingent to bury the dead. Mark me well, Sakura," her grandmother said sternly, turning and pointing the knife in her hand directly at the girl. "Konoha may preach teamwork and friendship, but when Uzushio called, her ally failed to respond. The survivors who straggled into Konoha weren't even allowed to go back and bury their dead."

They said nothing more on the subject, that day or any thereafter.

But that night, Sakura dreamed of a broken city, its gates sundered and broken on the ground, ash coating the usually pristine white walls, and smoke rising from inside them. There were no birds, only limp forms on the shore and being carried in by the waves.

When she woke, there were dried tear tracks on her face.

* * *

So she settled for Konoha, knowing that it shouldn't _feel_ like settling, but unable to deny how it felt. She threw herself into her studies, trying to distract herself from the nagging feelings of wrongness that had only gotten worse now that she knew her village's name. Tried to interest herself in Sasuke, as if to prove to herself that she could find a place in Konoha.

Her grandmother disapproved.

"The Uchiha's loved, that's true," she said, interrupting another carefully developed rant on Sasuke's better qualities, especially when compared to Uzumaki Naruto, who _wouldn't leave her alone_. "But their love was the type that would burn you just as easily as it warmed you. You should prepare yourself for heartache if you're going to chase that one."

"But he's not _annoying_ like Naruto or Kiba," Sakura retorted, scowling at her homework as if it was Naruto's face. "They can't be quiet, and Naruto's always following me around and trying to ask me out for ramen."

Surprisingly, her grandmother laughed. "That does sound like an Uzumaki. Now _there's_ one you could fall in love with," she continued. "They love just as fiercely as an Uchiha, without the risk of being burnt by it. Your only risk with them is that they love too widely, and you could lose them to their own noble impulses."

"How do you know so much about the Uchiha and the Uzumaki? Plus, Naruto's the only Uzumaki that I've ever heard of."

With a sigh, her grandmother turned back to the stove. "The Uchiha wore their hearts on their sleeves, before the Massacre. It was easy to see how dangerous it would be to love them. And the Uzumaki belonged to Uzushio, but the Shodai's wife was an Uzumaki. Only one made it to Konoha after the fall."

"Naruto's father?" Sakura guessed, curious in spite of herself.

"His mother. Uzushio's last gift to Konohagakure. They do her no honor, squandering her last gift to them as they do."

Despite pressing for more answers, Sakura got nothing further from her grandmother, just as it always was when anything close to Uzushio came up.

* * *

So she was...less cruel to Naruto. Didn't go out of her way to harshly reject him, didn't join in when the other students picked on him for his abysmal taijutsu, or status as dead last. He was one of the last remnants of Uzushio, even if he didn't know it. For the sake of her dream village, she could be kind to him.

Eventually she graduated, and when she sat on the roof to give her introduction after Naruto's ode to ramen, her words fell flat. Never before had she been asked to give these answers, and Uzushio seemed to be deeply entwined with all of them, even if it was an impossible pipe dream. So she stumbled through an introduction that was both deeply embarrassing and Sasuke-focused, even though she wanted to blurt out that her dream was to someday go to Uzushio, maybe even rebuild it…

And then it was Sasuke's turn, and she felt the first death knell to any plans of being his bride. Her grandmother's words about the Uchiha's loving like fire rose to mind as he spoke of vengeance, and her long honed skills of watching him for the most minute clues told her that he was serious about this in a way he had never been serious before. She was not part of his vengeance, therefore, she could not be part of his life until he had achieved vengeance.

So they fell together as a team in a slipshod manner, not really achieving the teamwork that Kakashi-sensei preached, and she couldn't help but resent him a bit for that. She knew that compared to the boys she wasn't much, especially not next to Sasuke's cold prowess and Naruto's inexhaustible reserves, but he said nothing to her. Did nothing but throw them into missions and sparring and only when he couldn't properly train them, hobbling along on crutches, did he give them all an exercise. She did well, the best of the group, and she waited for his acknowledgement and the next exercise for her to learn.

And he used her success to goad the boys on before packing her off to the bridge as a "reward".

She definitely resented him at that moment.

It was worse though, because the _feeling_ was worse. The feeling of _not right, not right_ that she had lived with for her entire life, and it was worse because they were in _Wave_ , next to the ocean, but it wasn't _her_ ocean, not _her_ village, and the waves she listened to at night were different than the ones in her dreams. More complacent. So the feeling of wrongness grew and grew, and as she looked at the hitai-ites on Zabuza and his apprentice, saw the mark that meant _Kiri_ , she felt hatred that wasn't hers alone bubble up in her throat, almost enough to drown out the fear.

When they left Wave, with two lonely graves behind them, she couldn't help but feel relieved.

* * *

After that mission, it seemed as if everything was rushing forward at a pace too fast to follow, the sound of the waves from her dreams now echoing in her ears during the waking hours. The Chuunin exams, the man from the Forest of Death who was after Sasuke, reaching a draw with Ino…

Kakashi-sensei disappeared during the month leading into the final round of the exams, and Sakura found that she couldn't bring herself to care all that much. It was just par for the course. Instead, she checked out several scrolls from the library and with the intention of teaching herself to water walk instead, and working on her taijutsu. She had been humbled during the exams, and she wouldn't let herself fail that badly again.

It was during her water walking exercises that she met Tenten.

She vaguely remembered the brown haired girl from the preliminaries, and had heard about how she had lost to the Suna kunoichi. So she was surprised when a voice hailed her from the bridge near where she was practicing her water walking skills.

"Hey, Haruno-san, right?"

Distracted, Sakura lost her chakra control and tumbled into the river. Surfacing, she shook the water out of her hair and swam to the bank to hoist herself out. The brunette was waiting for her, and reached down to help pull her out of the water.

"Can I help you?" the pink haired girl asked politely as she wrung out her sodden dress. It wouldn't really help, given that she had fallen in several times already trying to move faster than a snail's crawl on top of the water.

"I'm Tenten, one of Lee's teammates. I just wanted to thank you for visiting Lee so often. He doesn't say much, but I can tell it makes it better."

"He helped me," Sakura said, thinking of the forest, of the crushing weight of being the last man standing, her teammates helpless behind her. "Somehow he found out I was in trouble and he helped me without a second thought."

"That's Lee for you," Tenten said with a sigh, sitting down on the edge of the bank. "Always looking out for everyone but himself. He can't use chakra," the other girl added as Sakura sat down beside her. "Gai-sensei's been teaching him taijutsu instead, but injured like this…"

Sakura swallowed hard. She had overheard the nurses talking about Lee's condition, how _maybe_ the sannin Tsunade might be able to fix it, if anyone could ever convince her to return to Konoha. For any ninja, an injury like that would be hard to recover from, but if Lee couldn't use _chakra_ …

Well, it was a career ending injury.

"Maybe he'll get better," she mumbled, hearing her own lack of optimism. "I mean, they keep coming up with new treatments all the time."

"If Tsunade were here," Tenten began, but shook her head. "Enough of that. You're trying to practice your water walking?"

With a grimace, Sakura said: "Trying to teach myself, actually."

The other girl looked at her in shock. "Really? Your sensei let you participate in the exams without knowing how to water walk? Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm amazed you got through the Forest of Death alive, let alone in once piece."

"I don't know how we did," Sakura admitted quietly, fidgeting with her hands. "We came across this man…"

They had never been debriefed about what had happened in the Forest, not by Kakashi-sensei or even anyone else. So Sakura felt no guilt over telling Tenten about the man Team 7 had met in the forest.

"You said snake summons, and freaky jutsus?" Tenten said quietly, looking pale. "That almost sounds like…"

"Orochimaru," Sakura echoed just loud enough to be heard. She didn't want to take the chance that he would somehow appear to finish what he had started just because she said his name. "I looked it up after the exam."

"That's bad news," Tenten swallowed hard. "Really bad news. And they didn't debrief you?"

"I told Kakashi-sensei," Sakura answered. "And he and Sasuke went into a side room after the exam and then told me not to worry about the seal on his neck. So I think he knows, but nobody's talked to me…"

"Now I'm really impressed," Tenten whistled. "Not only did you make it through the first two rounds of the Chuunin Exams with only basic skills, but you survived one of the _sannin_."

"I think he might go after Sasuke again," the pink haired girl said with a shiver. "He just...it wasn't about Naruto or I at _all_. Even though we were all fighting as hard as we could, the only one of us he was focusing on was Sasuke."

"So, we need to get you fixed up, and fast then," Tenten said with a decisive nod. "What has your sensei got you doing during this month?"

With a shrug, Sakura kicked the bank in a brief burst of frustration. "I haven't seen him since the preliminary matches," she replied. "He's probably training Sasuke."

Tenten made a disgusted noise. "That's just _wrong_. Who let that guy be a sensei anyway? Gai-sensei wanted to make sure we were _all_ ready for the exams before he even thought about letting us participate, and we train _daily_. Admittedly, he's a little intense, but we at least had a chance that didn't rely solely on luck. From the sounds of it, all you do is missions and sparring without much instruction."

"That's why I'm trying to teach myself what I can," Sakura said, pointing to her small pack with a scroll sticking out of it, placed carefully on the bridge nearby where it wouldn't get wet. "The library has some pretty useful scrolls about chakra control and basic taijutsu forms, which is what I wanted to start with."

"You can't learn taijustu from a scroll," Tenten said bluntly. "How 'bout I help you? Neji's training with his family, and Gai-sensei's really trying to be there for Lee because he doesn't have anyone else, so I'm not doing missions, just daily training. You help me by being a training partner, and I'll help bring you up to the level you should be at."

"It's going to be a lot of work," Sakura warned. "I'm nowhere near where I probably should be. You don't have to go that far for me."

With a laugh, Tenten rose in a fluid movement. "Call it my thanks for visiting Lee. But we kunoichis need to stick together too, and helping you live longer is in my best interest. Right now I have exactly zero female friends to talk to, and sometimes the testosterone on my team is suffocating."

Laughing, Sakura stood up as well. "So," she asked, giving the brunette her full attention. "Where do we start?"

The grin on Tenten's face was slightly evil. "Water walking."

* * *

From that point on, the rest of the month passed quickly. Tenten certainly followed through on her promise, showing up at Sakura's window just after sunrise to drag her out on long circuits of Konoha before several hours of taijutsu practice. Gai-sensei usually showed up at some point during the morning and coached them both on their taijutsu forms, which was a novel experience for Sakura. At the Academy, there had been too many people for Iruka-sensei to pay individual attention to, and Kakashi-sensei didn't bother with instruction at all, but Gai-sensei patiently walked her through kata after kata, showing her the best stances for her body type and making sure her foundations were solid.

Oh, she suffered through a number of insane rants about the _power of youth_ and several ridiculous challenges, but Tenten was right there rolling her eyes next to her and failing almost as badly, which made it better, somehow.

After a break for lunch, they went to visit Lee, who was usually trying to push himself too hard, but their visits seemed to cheer him up. When they left the hospital, they went to Tenten's favorite training ground, where Tenten improved Sakura's weapons skills and had her practice water and tree walking by using her as target practice. Sakura lost often, but she felt herself getting better, if only slightly.

On the day of the exams, she met up with Ino and Tenten, filing into seats with the rest of the crowd. After a little bit, they budged up for Hinata and her sensei, and then slid even further down the row to make room for Lee and Gai. Sakura wondered if it wasn't a little cruel, allowing Lee to watch something he may never be allowed to participate in again,

But Lee seemed excited, so she kept her mouth shut, although she caught Tenten shooting worried glances at the boy as Naruto's match started.

The rest of the matches blurred together when Sakura tried to remember them, the genjutsu and what followed after it clearest in her memory.

She dispelled it easily on herself, and immediately dropped to the narrow foot aisle, pulling Tenten and Ino down with her, both caught under the genjustsu's thrall. Carefully, she woke first the brunette, then the blonde, and looked for instruction from the two jounin who had been sitting with them.

Three, Sakura remembered belatedly as Kakashi-sensei cut down a Suna-nin aiming for Lee. He had arrived at the start of Sasuke's match.

"Sakura," he said firmly. "Take Naruto and Shikamaru and go after Sasuke. He'll need help. Yamanaka, you, get Hyuuga and your teammate to safety and guard the shelters with the other genin. Don't stop to fight unless you have no other choice."

Unable to disobey, Sakura kicked Shikamaru in the ribs and took off after Sasuke, stopping only to collect Naruto on the way.

The fight against Gaara was quite possibly the most terrifying of her life, and she had fought against both Momochi Zabuza and Orochimaru in the short period of time since her graduation from the Academy. When it was over, and the reconstruction of Konoha began, she had thought that everything would go back to normal now, and her team would start doing missions and their half-hearted training again.

Or not.

Because Naruto disappeared, and then Kakashi-sensei was sick, and Sasuke was in the hospital…

Team 9 took her in, Tenten with a smile, Gai with a speech about a _youthful duty to the youth of Konoha_ , and Neji with a cool politeness that started to slowly wear off right about the time that Naruto returned, the sannins Tsunade _and_ Jiraya in tow, and her teammates tried to kill each other on the hospital roof.

Tenten sat with her in their favorite teashop and listened to her rant about the whole situation with a sympathetic look on her face. And after Sakura had gotten it out of her system, they talked about what having Tsunade back might mean for Lee, and how they planned to adjust their training schedule for whatever Kakashi-sensei might do with Team 7 now that everyone was back in the village and out of the hospital.

But the sick feeling in her stomach, the one that had been growing since Sasuke woke up in the hospital and wanted to fight Naruto, wouldn't go away. She wandered Konoha as night fell, unable to leave the most direct path from the Uchiha compound to the gate.

Her instincts were correct, and the words _thank you_ were the last thing she heard before it all went dark.

And when she woke to two concerned tokujo leaning over her, she realized two things.

One, Sasuke was gone.

But the second, surprisingly enough, was more troubling.

She hadn't dreamed of the sea.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two:**

After an extensive debriefing, she had barely made it to the gate in time to see Naruto off. She tried to believe in the promise he made her, but deep inside she knew that it would not come true. Sasuke was gone. It was a fact. Even if Naruto managed to bring him back, he would never stay. Never be happy in Konoha the way she tried to be even though her heart belonged to the Uzushio of her dreams.

So she waited on a bench in sight of the gates, hoping to see just when they returned. Lee was supposed to have his surgery today; Neji had mentioned it just before the team left, telling her where to find Tenten.

But Sakura stayed close to the gate, half her attention on the people entering and exiting, the other half pondering why she hadn't dreamed of Uzushio.

It was likely because Sasuke had knocked her out, but she felt bereft, nonetheless. Uzushio and her sea dreams had become a safety blanket of sorts. They were always consistent, but somehow she felt as if something had shifted, almost as if true north itself had shifted. It was unnerving.

Sometime in the late afternoon, she was startled by Tenten dropping down next to her.

"Did Lee's surgery go okay?" she asked, searching her friend's face for clues.

"He's fine," the other girl assured her, an oddly serious look on her face. "I have a question for you though, and it's important."

"What?" There had been a number of people asking her important questions today, what was one more?

"Do you dream of the sea?"

 _Uzushio_ , Sakura thought, freezing in place. "You have them _too_?" she whispered, wondering how that could be possible, how they could have gone a month without figuring out that they had something like _this_ in common.

"Come girls," a voice from behind them ordered softly. "We ought to go before it gets much later."

Twisting in her seat, Sakura was surprised to see her grandmother there, a pack on her back and Sakura's own in her hands. What was even more surprising was that she was wearing ninja clothing. _Old_ ninja clothing, but there was no mistaking the reinforced leggings and mesh shirt peeking out from under the navy blue sleeveless turtleneck as anything but ninja attire. A worn weapons pouch at her hip only confirmed it.

Her eyes were drawn to the battered, but well polished, hitai-ite wrapped around her grandmother's upper arm. A spiral was etched in the metal, familiar and different at the same time.

"You told me you were a civilian!" she mumbled, trying to wrap her head around this sudden upheaval of things she had thought she knew about her grandmother.

"I was never a shinobi of _Konohagakure_ ," her grandmother replied pointedly. "I served, and still serve, Uzushio. When she fell, I was in Konoha on a mission and chose to stay. Now she calls me home, and from what your friend says, she calls to the lost generations as well. Will you stay here in Konoha, Sakura, or will you come home with me?"

She was on her feet in a flash, not even needing to think about it. Accepting her pack, she felt a twinge of guilt over how easy it was to give up Konoha, but for so long she had dreamed of Uzushio, had felt something missing whenever she thought of Konoha. Shouldering her pack, trailing behind Tenten as her grandmother conversed with the chuunin gate guards, somehow convincing them to let her out with two genin.

"What did she mean by Uzushio _calling_?" Sakura whispered to Tenten as they lingered in the background.

"Last night's dream," Tenten whispered back. "It was different. Somehow I could feel that I was being...summoned. Called back. Did you not dream?"

"I was knocked out and left on a bench," Sakura muttered, feeling a flash of irritation towards Sasuke for depriving her of the chance to experience Uzushio's call. "No dreams for me at all."

"Damn," Tenten breathed as they passed through the gates. "That _sucks_."

A short ways off the road, they took to the trees, heading straight north instead of east and south like Sakura would have expected.

"Are we trying to throw off anyone who comes after us?" she asked, drawing even with her grandmother, thankful now for the month of training with Tenten and Gai which had improved her stamina leaps and bounds in even such a short time. "Is that why we're not picking the fastest route?"

"We have one more person to find," her grandmother said, eyes fixed on the forest before them. "I'm not leaving Uzushio's last gift for Konoha to squander it further."

"Naruto _loves_ Konoha," Sakura said doubtfully. "I don't know if he'll just leave it."

"Does he?" her grandmother said, so softly that Sakura almost missed it. "His mother didn't. She settled for it, latched on so tightly because she had no other choice, not with the way they bound her. But the sea was her first and greatest love."

"You knew his mother?"

"I brought her to Konoha," was the short response. "My squad and I were escorting her when Uzushio fell. It was only by chance that we left when we did. Otherwise Konoha would have had to recall Tsunade much earlier than they did."

"What's so important about his mother?" Tenten asked, catching up with them. "A whole squad to escort a girl?"

Her grandmother paused for a moment, peering into the distance. "I'll explain more when we stop next."

* * *

It was past midday when they stopped again, the sound of rushing water in front of them. If Sakura had to take a guess, they were close to the Valley of the End, where the Shodai Hokage and Uchiha Madara had their final battle, the last appearance of the Kyuubi until the night it attacked the village.

Her grandmother closed her eyes for a moment before nodding. "We have a few minutes, so I'm going to use them to brief you on what you need to know before we retrieve Uzumaki. What I'm telling you are secrets of Konohagakure, but considering you've chosen to be missing-nin by leaving for Uzushio, I doubt you'll have many issues with my breaking this particular law."

Swallowing hard, Sakura nodded, taking the rations bar that her grandmother passed over. "Eat this while you listen; we'll be moving fast once we have Uzumaki. Now, this story starts back when Uchiha Madara, with the Kyuubi, fought Senju Hashirama not too far from where we are at the moment."

"Uzushio was a citadel of sealmasters, the first place where ninja of varying clans lived in peace together. It was said that they were where Senju Hashirama got his idea for Konohagakure. Then, the tailed beasts roamed freely, a risk to any in their path. Uzushio, however, put their knowledge to the task, developing their most powerful seals: ones that would contain a biju."

"Teams of seal masters trained their entire lives to be able to survive long enough to seal the biju, though every Uzushio shinobi knew the seals as a precaution. A master binding array of seals was etched into the floor of the citadel's master's office, waiting for the day when they would be called upon. But when the first shinobi of Uzushio met a biju, she was far from the citadel, without a team, and with nothing to seal the biju into but herself. And so, Uzumaki Mito became the first jinchuuriki as she sealed the Kyuubi no Kitsune into herself in her desperation to protect her husband's village."

"Now, that created an obvious power disparity, which the other newly formed hidden villages didn't like. Rather than risk the situation devolving into open warfare, which the fledgling villages wouldn't survive, Senju Hashirama, with the help of Uzushio's sealmasters, divided the biju between the countries. To each country was gifted a team of sealmasters, who gave up their allegiance to Uzushio for that of the villages they entered. It was their duty to identify and train the generations of jinchuuriki that would follow, as well as assisting with the transfer of biju from host to host. They, and their descendents, were bound to that single task."

"When the time came for Mito-hime to pass on her burden, her only living descendent was Senju Tsunade, and the woman had long since left the village. It is...easier, we are told, for the jinchuuriki to be chosen young, so that they have time to acclimate to their burden. So a distant cousin was brought from Uzushio, Uzumaki Kushina. My team and I escorted her to Konoha, only to find out a week later that our village was destroyed."

"Naruto's mother?" Sakura asked, and received a nod in return. "But, if she was the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, what happened to her?"

Her grandmother leaned back against the tree, closing her eyes. "We don't know, exactly," she said slowly. "The seal placed on Kushina-chan weakened during childbirth, and somehow the Kyuubi broke free, despite the sealmaster there. Uzushio had never sent sealmasters to Konoha, because of their close ties, and even though several of us knew the appropriate seals, we were not asked to be in attendance at the birth because we were not considered active shinobi and Kushina's due date was considered an S-rank secret. The one they had apparently was not enough, and the Kyuubi escaped. Weakened by the birth, Kushina was mortally injured restraining the Kyuubi, and the sealmaster chose to seal it within Naruto, her only living relative that we know of."

"Naruto's got the Kyuubi within him?" Tenten said softly, eyes wide. "Do all the adults know? Is that why the matron at the orphanage…?" Sakura had forgotten that her newest friend was an orphan, and had never made the connection between Naruto and Tenten having likely known _of_ each other, since there was only one orphanage in Konoha, but now it made sense.

"Among other adults," her grandmother replied dryly. "The Sandaime must have been more shaken by the loss of the Yondaime than anyone thought to think that ordering the adults to _not talk about_ the Kyuubi's ensconcement in Uzumaki Naruto would be enough to protect the boy from the grief and anger that followed the Kyuubi's rampage."

"Was Gaara a jinchuuriki as well?" the pink haired girl asked, connecting the dots. "Is that how Naruto was able to beat him?"

"Very likely the boy was the Ichibi's jinchuuriki. We had heard that Suna had killed the sealmasters during the second war, so I wouldn't be surprised if the boy was improperly sealed." Abruptly, her grandmother stood. "Now, the fight is winding down, so we had best be on our way."

"Fight?" Sakura said with surprise. "Naruto's been _fighting_ someone and we've been just sitting around?" Even if she hadn't just gone through an abrupt reversal in her thoughts about the boy, she felt offended that they hadn't been there to back him up.

"The Uchiha boy has renounced Konoha for power." The steel in her grandmother's voice could have cut through stone. "Uzumaki needed to see that for himself before he would believe it. Whatever injuries he has sustained, he will recover from. It is one benefit of being a jinchuuriki."

Stowing the last of the rations bar in her pack, Sakura dutifully followed as they moved towards the waterfall, now pitted and cratered from the fight that Naruto and Sasuke had just had. The second boy was nowhere in sight, only Naruto's battered body on the side of the river.

As they landed next to him, Sakura saw Sasuke's hitai-ite laying next to her other teammate's body, a fresh gouge marring the otherwise shiny surface, and her lip curled into a sneer. Naruto was breathing, she saw after a few moments of observation, but the marks of healing injuries were there.

"Both of you, if you're certain, weight down your hitai-ites and throw them in the river. We need to move fast from here; a Konoha shinobi's closing in fast. Tenten, do you know how to cover trails? Even from scent?"

"Gai-sensei was particularly adamant about us being able to do that," the other girl said, wrapping her hitai-ite around rocks. "Do you want me to take rear then, Shiroyami-taichou?"

"Do it," Sakura's grandmother said as she shifted to pull Naruto on her back in the standard carry for wounded teammates. "Sakura, you're in the middle, keeping a lookout. And don't look so shocked girl, it's my maiden name, the one I used as an Uzushio shinobi. That's what any other survivors will recognize."

Without another word, Sakura tossed her hitai-ite in the river with Tenten's, squashing her brief moment of regret with the memory of the citadel from her dreams, and fell into step behind her grandmother, Tenten at the rear.

* * *

They moved fast, faster than Sakura had ever moved before for a sustained sprint. She was glad of the rations bar her grandmother had made them eat, even if they tasted like cardboard. But she didn't say a word about stopping, knowing that if a Konoha shinobi had been closing on them, they had to put as much distance between them as possible. Even though a brief rain shower had dogged them for the first hour or two, it wouldn't be enough to do more than muddle their scent. Hopefully Tenten was able to cover their trail sufficiently.

East of the Valley of the End, so far east that Sakura suspected they had crossed over the border into Hot Springs, they stopped again.

A minute into their rest, Naruto roused himself, looking about blearily. "Sakura-chan?" he mumbled, shaking his head. "Where are we? What happened to- Sasuke! Sakura-chan, I tried…"

"Don't worry," she said gently, still trying to catch her breath. "That jerk deserves whatever he gets. He's not a good teammate if he hurts you like that."

"Hey, you're the girl on Bushy-brow's team!" Naruto blurted as Tenten joined them after covering their trail, the other girl just as sweaty as Sakura felt. "And who're you, baa-san?"

"Shiroyami Nanami," Sakura's grandmother said with a sigh. "But call me Shiroyami-taichou. I knew your mother."

Naruto froze, a hopeful look on his face. "You did?" he asked, awe on his face. "What was she like? Was she really pretty? What happened to her?"

"She was a lot like you, in a number of ways." At this Naruto's hand drifted to his stomach, barely covered by the tattered jumpsuit he was wearing. "Yes, she was the jinchuuriki before you. The Kyuubi killed her while they were sealing it within you."

There was a quaver in Naruto's voice as he asked: "So she didn't just abandon me?"

"No. She was overjoyed that you were going to be born," Sakura's grandmother replied curtly. "I can tell you more in the future, but I need to know one thing from you right now?"

"What is it?" Naruto asked seriously, more serious than he had ever been in Sakura's memory.

"Do you dream of a village by the sea?"

"It's _real_?" Naruto blurted out, excitement filling his eyes. "That's not just something I made up? Can we go there?"

"Are you willing to leave Konoha behind and become a missing-nin?" her grandmother countered. "Because if you're going to join us in rebuilding Uzushio, you can't become Hokage."

Swallowing hard, Naruto looked torn for a moment. "Will it matter that I'm…" he mumbled, gesturing to his stomach, where Sakura guessed the seal for the Kyuubi was.

"Uzumaki Mito was the first jinchuuriki, and the people of Uzushio _adored_ her," Her grandmother said reassuringly. "Those of us who were there before the fall will remember that, and teach those who had been born out of the village that every jinchuuriki is first and foremost a sacrifice for their safety. We honor that, not spit on it where I was born."

Another long moment, and then a smile stretched across Naruto's face, wider and brighter than any other Sakura had seen him show before. "Then I'll go with you!" he cheered, pumping a fist in the air. "Lead the way, Shiroyami-taichou!"

Snorting in quiet amusement, Sakura's grandmother dug into the pouch at her waist and came out with a small container. A quick twist and the cap was off, and each of them was being given a small black pill.

"Soldier pills," she explained while Sakura and the others were staring at them. "They'll give you the energy it takes to run through the night. We're not stopping until we're further south."

Sakura took the soldier pill dry, the same as the other two genin. Naruto carefully took off his hitai-ite after seeing Sakura and Tenten without theirs, carefully tucking it in his weapons pouch. She had heard it was originally Iruka's, given after whatever mess happened the night of graduation, and she could guess that it was precious to him. "Obaa-san, what about Naruto's things? I assume you packed mine, and Tenten had time to pack hers, but what about Naruto?"

"I have some extras, but I stopped by his apartment to gather what appeared precious," her grandmother said as Naruto's face fell. "And there is nothing waiting for us but what we bring now. All of us will rebuild from the ground up."

Without waiting for a reply, she took to the tree branches above them, leaving the rest of them to follow after her. Night was falling, making the path through unfamiliar trees dangerous. Tugging Naruto into formation next to her, she smiled shyly at him before focusing her eyes on her grandmother's retreating back. Tenten was behind them, presumably covering their trail again.

They stopped once, in the early hours before dawn. It was just long enough for a short nap and an extended water and rations bar break. Sakura had never been so tired, but everything seemed to fade when her grandmother informed them that they should reach the port where they'd barter for passage on the way to Uzushio by noon.

Even Naruto seemed to be fading as the trees thinned, and they drew to a halt where they could hear the sound of waves but not see them. _These_ were closer to the waves Sakura had heard lulling her to sleep every night, closer than those in Wave, and the very thought made her want to jump up and down in excitement.

"Uzumaki, wear these," Sakura's grandmother said, tossing him a bundle of fabric. "Sakura, there's something for you at the top of your pack. Tenten, do you need anything?"

"I think I'm okay," the brunette said, kneeling and unshouldering her pack. "You want us to look common and civilian, right?"

"Exactly. Uzumaki, there's a group of bushes over there, and don't even think about peeking or coming out until we tell you to."

As Sakura slipped off her pack, she heard Naruto slip clumsily through the bushes. Shaking out the clothing her grandmother had packed, she frowned at the long, faded blue kimono shirt and brown leggings.

"We can't attract too much attention, so all of your visible weapons ought to go in your packs," her grandmother instructed, slipping into a worn brown yukata and covering her hair with a handkerchief so she looked like any woman who worked in the fields. "Uzumaki, bring yours to me when I tell you to come out."

"What's our cover?" Tenten asked, having exchanged her shirt for a plain yukata that looked somewhat small, but covered the most of her ninja pants. She was in the process of taking out her hairpins and restyling her distinctive two bun style into something more common. "Farmers?"

"You three are my grandchildren. Your parents just died, and I'm taking us to live with your aunt and uncle, who are fishermen on the far side of Uzushio. Sakura, rub some of this in your hair, it's far to distinctive."

"Certainly not yours," an unfamiliar voice said, and Sakura reached for a kunai from a weapons pouch that was no longer there are she spotted the brown haired man entering the small clearing that they had been changing in. "Shiroyami, it's been a while. I thought you had stayed in Konohagakure."

"Koizumi Kyo," her grandmother said with a smile on her face. "I thought that was you I sensed, although my range is never anything to talk about."

"Shiroyami Nanami. Still bossing around the next generation I see." He grinned at Sakura, and she couldn't help but grin back. "Are any of these yours? I know it's not the Uzumaki in the bushes."

"Hey!" Naruto cried indignantly, stumbling out only to realize that he hadn't been called for. Thankfully they were all covered. The tattered remains of his jumpsuit were clutched in one hand, his weapons pouch in the other. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Kyo, meet my granddaughter Haruno Sakura, Konohagakure no Tenten, and Uzumaki Naruto," her grandmother said smoothly. "They all dreamed of Uzushio, despite never seeing her."

"Where's Uzumaki Kushina?" the man asked, leaning on the long wooden staff he carried. "Still bossing around everyone in her path?"

"Dead twelve years now," her grandmother said, a hint of grief in her voice. "Naruto is her son."

" _Hells_ ," Koizumi swore, eyes widening as they focused on Naruto, who stared defiantly back. "You brought Konoha's _jinchuuriki_? You always flouted the rules Nanami, but _this_ is big."

"Would you have left him there?" she challenged, moving to put her hand on Naruto's shoulder, the contact causing him to flinch. "Konohagakure spat on its friendship with Uzushio, and they let Kushina's son grow up an orphan, at the tender mercies of the adults who hated him for the burden he bore."

"Point taken," he acknowledged easily. "But we had best get behind the walls before much more time passes. I doubt Konoha will like having their jinchuuriki go missing, not after they lost the Sandaime."

"Farming _family_ then?" Tenten said, shouldering her pack good naturedly. "If you're concerned about pursuit, the best thing is to put water between us. Not even an Inuzuka could track us across the sea."

"Here," Koizumi said to Naruto, rummaging in his waist pouch. "Put this over your hair, Naruto-kun. It will make you less recognizable."

After he had tied on the bandanna, with Sakura rubbing the brown powder her grandmother had given her into her eyebrows and hair before tying on her own headscarf, they set off towards the fishing village that lay before them.

Koizumi-san, who had ordered them to call him Kyo the first time Tenten addressed him as such, managed to get them passage on a small fishing boat that made irregular trips to the island. Sakura hung over the rail with Naruto and Tenten on either side of her, rejuvenated by the seaspray against her face and the growing sight of Uzushio's shore in the distance. Behind them, her grandmother and Kyo talked with the sailors, asking about the fishing and the weather...all sorts of things Sakura assumed would be important to farmers.

When they docked, it was hard not to rush off the ship, but they held themselves in check enough to trail somewhat meekly behind the two adult shinobi while they threaded towards the edge of the village.

Stretching away towards a mountain in the distance was a long road, somewhat worse for wear and lined with a waist high stone wall on either side. In places the stones had tumbled away, leaving crumbling gaps in the wall.

"This road connects all the villages on the island. It was used to transport goods to and from the markets of Uzushio." Sakura's grandmother stood for a long moment looking at the road before she stepped forward and began walking. "Apprentice shinobi used to be responsible for maintaining the roadways. It was the most common task they were assigned. You would use the terms genin and D ranks, but those were associated with Hidden Villages and we never aspired to be one. We were happy with our trade routes and our citadel."

Naruto hopped up on the wall, balancing carefully for a moment as a loose stone wobbled underfoot and then bounding forward. Tired, though exhilarated by how close they were to Uzushio, Sakura followed on the road, Tenten at her side as they looked around, taking in the sparse fields on either side of the road. "Could you tell me more about my mother?" the boy asked, jumping over a gap in the wall. "Like, what was her favorite food? What did she look like? Was she awesome?"

Kyo laughed, idly spinning his staff with an ease that Tenten seemed envious of. "Whenever you had to look for Kushina-chan, you always checked the ramen stands first. According to her, ramen was the closest thing to a god this world had."

"He's the same way," her grandmother added dryly as Naruto let out a loud whoop. "At least from what I know. Kushina-chan was a little taller than you, with the longest red hair you'd ever seen. Her first day at the Academy in Konoha, she told the other students that she was going to be Hokage. If you got on her bad side, she'd prank you until she was satisfied, and then prank you one last time to make sure the message was received."

Crowing in approval, Naruto launched himself into the air.

* * *

They reached Uzushio at sunset, cresting the top of the last hill to see dirty walls rising up out of the sea, mountains behind them and the river in front. Stretching out in front of them was a field of rubble.

"That was the port," Sakura's grandmother was standing completely still, fists clenched against her side. "It was mostly merchants, civilians, and shinobi with young or large families that lived outside the citadel. The markets had to have been half the village, easily. We traded goods from Fire, Lightning, Water, and Wind. Any country with a port had ships that stopped here. As a waypoint, we were the best. Wave did well, but we were bigger because you could hire shinobi to protect from pirates. And we protected the waters around here as well."

"Long term patrol assignments," Kyo said with a grin. "My fellow apprentices hated the northern stretch after our two months stint there. I think our mentor was relieved when they passed their qualification exam."

"So, instead of genin, you had apprenticeships?" Sakura asked as they started down the hill, heading for the river and the citadel on the other side. "And instead of chuunin exams, you had a qualification exam?"

"Most shinobi served as mentors for at least one apprentice," Kyo explained. "Usually it was a child or a friend's child. Once they were capable of functioning independently, they were allowed to take the qualification exam, which was overseen by the specialists. They were talking about doing away with the system and adopting Konoha's, but before a decision could be made…"

The remainder of the sentence was unnecessary as they stopped at the start of the rubble that had once been the village surrounding the citadel. "It's all stone," Sakura commented softly. "The wood's all gone, I guess."

"Most of it was stone to start with," her grandmother said shortly, mouth a tight line. "It's hardy enough to survive the winter storms, and plentiful. There shouldn't be any bodies here; from what the refugees said when they arrived in Konoha, the outer village was completely empty when the citadel's gates closed."

"There's no bodies there either," a cracked voice said, causing all of the shinobi to spin, hands going for weapons pouches that were still packed away. "So if you're looking for easy loot, you'd best move along."

"Has it been so long that you've forgotten me, Himura-san?" Sakura relaxed as her grandmother shifted out of a battle stance, and she caught a glimpse of a bright blade disappearing into the top of Kyo's staff. "I'm not that old."

With a grin, the other woman reached out, pulling Sakura's grandmother into a hug. "Nanami-chan. I thought you had died in the first wave."

"How did you survive?" Kyo asked, also clearly familiar with the woman. "We had heard that all of those in the citadel fell."

"They did," the woman said, cheer dropping from her face. "Those of us who were civilians in the citadel… on the first day of the siege, after the first battle in the surf, Uzumaki-sama somehow opened a tunnel for us from the lower passages to the other side of the mountains. It caved in on the third day of the fighting, when the citadel fell, but all of the civilians escaped. He tried to send some of the shinobi with us, but they refused to let the citadel fall. Once...once the bastards had left our shores, we returned to bury them, but the bodies lost at sea could not be recovered."

"Who attacked?" Sakura had never heard such rage in her grandmother's voice before. "Word never came to Konoha, since those who reached us were mostly civilians and merchants who left before the siege began, when the first ships were sighted."

" _Kiri_ ," spat the old woman, fire sparking in her eyes. Sakura remembered a man and a boy in Wave, remembered the scratched out hitai-ite and the unfamiliar rage burning in her gut, satisfaction even as she cried at Zabuza's death and Haku's sacrifice. " _Chigiri_."

Sakura flinched as her grandmother _snarled_ , a guttural, vicious sound that was the exact opposite of her previous well-mannered civilian persona. "I _knew_ it. I _told_ Sarutobi, I told Uzumaki-sama...and neither of them listened to me."

"How were the seals circumvented? Do you know?" Kyo was asking, buying time for her grandmother to control her grief.

"The shinobi never said," the civilian woman replied. "But I heard something about people with Uzushio's blood being used to bypass the initial misdirection seals, bringing the army in that way."

"Kiri's seal team," her grandmother gritted out. "That would be enough. First chance I get, I'm reworking the seals."

"You're coming back for good?"

"She calls us home." Turning to look at the walls of the citadel, her grandmother said: "We had best raise the seals and put ourselves under their protection before much more time passes. It was a hard run to get here, and we don't know who may have followed."

"My family and I relocated to Kitagawa after the citadel fell. If you have need of us, send word. I was only down this way to pay my respects while my grandson bartered at the junction. He'll be expecting me back soon."

"May the current carry you," Sakura's grandmother called. "Look for a messenger to the villages within the week, depending on how many return."

Sakura turned back to the ruined village, exhaustion starting to make its comeback now that they were in sight of the citadel. "What are these seals you were talking about?"

"They're set into the citadel wall," Kyo explained as they carefully made their way across the rubble, some of it shifting and sliding underfoot. "When they're active, only those recognized by Uzushio will be able to locate it. Before, they were rarely used because most of our economy was in shipping and protecting merchant vessels. Hidden Villages didn't bother with us because we didn't have much to offer."

"Until Kiri decided to come calling," Sakura heard her grandmother mutter under her breath as they reached the river. "They obviously need to be reworked, but for the time being they'll protect us."

Crossing the river was more difficult than water walking on the placid rivers around Konoha. The water jumped and tumbled over the rocks, rushing to meet the sea that waited for it. Kyo pointed out where the bridges used to stand, the worn pylons still jutting out of the riverbed, and then they were making the short, sharp ascent to the opening in the wall, the gates long gone, lost to fire or the natural passage of time Sakura supposed.

"I don't know how to thank Himura-san and the others for laying our comrades to rest," her grandmother murmured, standing in the middle of the gateway, staring bleakly at the sea of rubble before them. "If we had to sort through the rubble to find what was left…"

Sakura shuddered slightly, knowing that it wouldn't have been pleasant, having to worry about finding bones amidst the broken stone that filled the space between the gates and the wall supporting the second level of the citadel. She had seen the space before in her dreams, seen it whole and vibrantly colored instead of the dull grey of broken stone where the paint has worn away.

"This used to be the main market district," Kyo said as they carefully traversed the rubble while making for the gate to the second level. "Only the prosperous merchants bothered to bring their goods within the citadel walls, so you saw a number of gemsmiths, fine clothing and fabric suppliers, and other luxury goods. North of the market was the small civilian district, since most civilians chose to live outside the walls where it was cheaper and less crowded."

"What was in the second circle?" Tenten asked as Naruto looked around, taking everything in with eager eyes. "Shinobi housing?"

"Shinobi supply market mainly, but also the main restaurant district. The hospital was also on this level, where it was convenient to shinobi and injured civilians while still easy to defend." Sakura's grandmother climbed to the top of a pile of rubble before pointing slightly south, towards the sea side of the citadel. "All of the clan compounds were that way, but very few families ever had enough members to be known as clans. The Uzumaki compound was over there; they may have had underground vaults for their valuable heirlooms, but I doubt it."

Naruto's hopeful face kept up as they crossed into the third circle of the citadel. "I'm here, and you knew my mom, and that's enough for now," he said cheerfully, somehow still energetic despite his fight with Sasuke, the flight to Uzushio, and now the trip through the ruined citadel. "What was here in the third circle?"

"Shinobi housing, mostly. Apartments because there wasn't enough space for single houses. Not in this circle. The first and second circles maybe, but not the third. Research and Development had their building on the north end, connected to the hospital through underground passages. We'd have to check, but those are likely still intact." Guiding them along the wall, Kyo and Sakura's grandmother shepherded the trio of genin through a broad opening in the wall, and they were in the top circle of the citadel.

"This was the seat of Uzushio," Kyo explained as they headed towards the largest pile of rubble set right against the mountains that formed the back wall of the citadel. "Uzushio's master of the citadel had his or her offices here, and it's where the vaults are."

"Vaults?" Sakura asked, echoing the question that seemed to be on Tenten and Naruto's mind as well. "What vaults?"

"The master sealing array for the citadel's defenses was kept underground," her grandmother explained, beginning to shift the rubble. "If I remember correctly, the entrance was somewhere...right around here."

As Kyo moved to help remove the rubble, Sakura looked at her fellow genin before shrugging and joining. Much of it was too heavy for her to lift on her own, but she could tote away the smaller pieces. She was soon joined by an army of Naruto clones, and with their help, a small patch of ground was cleared, the original tiles still in place, though badly cracked and pitted.

A few hand signs, too quick for Sakura's tired brain to process, and her grandmother was biting her thumb and slapping her hand down on the tiles. Amazingly, one shifted, and Kyo helped pry it up, revealing a winding set of stairs. "Nanami first," he said gesturing for Sakura's grandmother to enter the passage. "I'll bring up the rear. It was built to circulate fresh air on its own, so we shouldn't have to worry about dead air."

Obediently, Sakura followed Tenten down, Naruto behind her, marvelling at the glowing seals etched into the wall, the only source of light in the dark tunnels. In Konoha, they had learned that seals were for summoning and for sealing scrolls, but here was sealwork beyond any that she had dreamed was possible.

Further into the tunnels, the glowing seals were interspersed with other, more solidly drawn seals, ink dark against the grey walls.

"The storage seals seem untouched," her grandmother commented, lightly tapping one she had paused to inspect. "We should be well equipped for basic supplies then, if I remember their contents well."

"Uzushio was always prepared for outlasting a siege or recovering from a natural disaster," Kyo explained from behind them as they moved forward. "This vault contains its most important documents, as well as a supply of food staples and other necessary supplies. All of which should be useful while we rebuild the citadel and the harbor, which will then allow us to start receiving ships once more."

"Only the elite knew about the vault," her grandmother added from above them. "The information contained here is invaluable, but more valuable are the control seals." She stopped suddenly, causing Sakura to bump into her from behind.

Peering around her grandmother's frozen form, Sakura saw a worn hitai-ite lying on the ground in front of a pile of ashes. Nearby, closer to them was another pile of ashes, with several misshapen splatters of molten metal that could have only been weapons once.

Leaning against the wall at the end of the tunnel was a weathered looking katana in its sheath, the tarnished brass decorations reflecting the light from the seals in the wall. Carved into the rock were unfamiliar symbols.

" _To any who come_ ," Kyo read softly from behind them, knuckles white as they gripped his staff, " _If those not in the citadel return to find their home razed, know that I have sealed them so that only you could enter. Kiri has attacked us, and Konoha has abandoned us, since no message, no help has come in response to our pleas. One Kiri shinobi has followed me; he is dead now, but I am poisoned and will not live much longer without aid. It is too risky to unseal the vaults; I have made my peace with the shinigami. I die here with the hope that someday our home will call you home, and that a dawn will come again where the citadel burns with the light of the sunset, not the light of the fires of war._ "

"Hamasaki Mariko," Sakura's grandmother's voice wavered slightly as she reached out to touch the message. "She was a fellow apprentice under my master when we were growing up. In the end she became Uzumaki-sama's aide. He must have sent her here to trigger the failsafes that would ensure the vaults remained unbreached."

"We had best raise the protective seals," Kyo reached out to squeeze her grandmother's shoulder gently before stepping around them to reach the wall. Carefully, he bit his thumb and drew his blood across a line of seals etched deeper into the stone than the fallen kunoichi's message. The rock shuddered, moving away to reveal an entrance to a dim chamber.

"Come children," Sakura's grandmother murmured, stepping forward. "It will take all of us to activate the seals."

Kyo was standing in the center of the chamber, studying the seals spiraling out from a center pillar, also carved with seals. "It's been a long time since I was last here," he murmured, seemingly oblivious to their presence. "Every new shinobi family, or lone shinobi who swears their service to the citadel is brought here to pledge it in blood."

"Their names are carved into the wall," her grandmother continued, stepping over to the wall where name after name was carved, most obviously done with a kunai. "My mother was the one to carve our family name. I was first down here when I joined the ranks of the elite."

"How do we activate the barrier seals?" Tenten asked, kneeling to take a better look at the seals on the floor. "I know how to make and modify basic storage seals, but these are well beyond my capabilities."

"First we need to add you to the sealing array," Kyo produced a kunai from somewhere in his clothes. "If you don't know your surname, now's the time to choose one. Naruto-kun, you should be able to find your family's name at the top of the list."

Tenten took the kunai and seemed to think for a moment before finding an empty place on the wall and slowly carving the kanji for _Mori_. She offered the kunai to Sakura, but the pink haired girl shook her head. "I'll change my name," she murmured, looking shyly at her grandmother for approval. "Haruno belongs to Konoha, but Shiroyami belongs to Uzushio."

A smile on her face, her grandmother beckoned her towards a spot on the wall. "Bite your thumb and smear the blood across the kanji. Uzumaki, you do the same."

Obediently, Sakura did as she was instructed, before joining the others as they gathered around the pillar.

"I know the two of you are worn out," her grandmother said, looking at Tenten and Sakura carefully, "but I need you two to push through enough for us to raise the seals. Place your bleeding hand on the pillar and channel chakra into it. Let it flow in whatever pattern the seals guide it in, and don't swamp it." This last point was directed at Naruto, who grinned sheepishly. As one, they placed their hands on the column, and Sakura closed her eyes as she felt her chakra flowing into it, easily seeking out the patterns of the seals which molded and shaped it, doubling the trickle she could provide, easily multiplying it as it threaded through, starting to mix with a salt-and-earth feeling that she guessed was Kyo, then a wind-and-leaves that felt a bit like her grandmother. The solid earth-and-rock had to be Tenten, because the overpowering wind-and-fire couldn't be anything but Naruto and the Kyuubi within him.

And then, just as she felt all five of their chakras melding, she was stumbling back from the pillar, feeling lightheaded. Tenten was slumping to her knees, with Kyo looking over her with sharp eyes. The long, desperate run to Uzushio, the aftereffects of the soldier pill she had taken, and the lack of food and water outside of the rations bars they had choked down during their two stops was finally catching up to her.

"Uzumaki, can you carry her?" was the last thing she heard.

 *****Sorry there's so much in this chapter, it kind of ran away from me. Anyway, many thanks to papalogia for reading through this and offering suggestions/comments.*****


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three:**

When she woke, Sakura nearly panicked as she took in the dark stone around her before she remembered where she had been last and relaxed. Carefully sitting up, she realized that she wasn't in the vaults anymore. Instead she was ensconced in her bedroll (where her grandmother had been keeping _that_ she wanted to know) in some sort of small room carved out of stone.

Noise from outside made her flinch, rotating to see the door as her hand reached for a kunai she didn't have. As Tenten's familiar face came into view, she relaxed, abashed at how jumpy she had gotten since Orochimaru attacked Konoha.

"Glad you're finally up sleepyhead," the older girl teased, tossing her a package that when opened revealed a trio of rice balls. "Daylight's wasting."

"It's only been a day though, right?" Sakura clarified through a mouth of rice. "I mean, it's the day after we got here?"

"You slept through the rest of the afternoon, and the full night. It's about midmorning now, and Shiroyami-taichou told me to come wake you up since we need all hands on deck for starting the rebuilding."

"Where are we?" Sakura gestured at the small room, which now that she looked had Naruto's familiar bedroll, as well as three others that she assumed were Kyo's, Tenten's, and her grandmother's since their packs were sitting next to them. Her own pack was next to her pillow, and she reached inside for her kunai pouch and strapped it to her leg where it belonged, even though the kimono shirt and leggings still felt weird compared to her usual qipao dress and shorts.

"Somehow this little guardhouse built into the wall by the main gate made it unscathed," Tenten explained, passing Sakura a hair tie as she saw the younger girl struggle to tie her hair back while finishing the last of her riceballs. "We couldn't see the entrance until we shifted some of the rubble, but it's reasonable shelter. Shiroyami-taichou wants us to start on the administrative building today though, since she says that more people should be coming in the next few days."

"More people?"

"Apparently it's a lot harder to wipe out a village than I thought," Tenten said with a shrug as they left the little guard house and headed for the fourth circle of the citadel. "A lot of the shinobi sworn to Uzushio were in the citadel when Kiri attacked, but there were still some on missions. That's what happened to Kyo. Plus a small detachment was tasked with escorting those who chose not to retreat into the citadel, so they survived. And then there's the battalion that was apparently on the battlefield fighting Iwa at Konoha's request. Not many of them survived, according to Shiroyami-taichou, but those that did settled in Konoha or became wanderers. Plus, she said that a small group of shinobi, mostly the small clans, sent representatives with Mito-sama to Konoha, so that she wouldn't be alone in her new home. It was part of the betrothal agreement."

"So, what you're saying is, that not only did a number of Uzushio's sworn shinobi survive the fall of the citadel because they weren't there, but there's also several groups that relocated prior to the fall whose descendents could feel the call just like you and I did?"

"That just about sums it up," Tenten agreed as they reached the fourth circle where an army of Naruto clones was industriously shifting rubble into three piles, supervised by Kyo and her grandmother. "Which is why Shiroyami-taichou wanted to get started on the administrative building so we could have a place to house more people as they arrive."

"Sakura, how do you feel?" Her grandmother placed a hand on her forehead for a moment before nodding. "You seem to have recovered just fine from your bout of chakra exhaustion."

"Hai, obaa-san," Sakura responded, pushing up the sleeves of her worn kimono shirt as she looked at the rubble. "Where do I start?"

"Call me Shiroyami-taichou," her grandmother said immediately. "It will be less confusing for everyone that way. Why don't you and Tenten work on clearing the rubble with Naruto? Once we get the ground cleared and settled, we can start placing stones."

"Hai taichou," the girls chorused, each moving to help Naruto and his clones.

* * *

By midday, they had cleared about half the area Shiroyami-taichou had marked out, pointing out the seals etched into the stone beneath the rubble and the clear line between the floor tiles and the stone base of the citadel. After they stopped for a midday meal of more riceballs, Sakura and Tenten went back to clearing rubble with Naruto's clone army while the adults began laying stones around the perimeter of the cleared space.

"Taichou!" Tenten called from her position on the top of the largest pile of rubble, where they were putting the stones they could only lift with about a half dozen clones and some sneaky chakra enhancement of their muscles that Tenten had taught them. It was something she had learned trying to emulate the sannin Tsunade, she had confessed during their lunch break. "People approaching the gate!"

"Do they look as if they can see the citadel?" Shiroyami called from where she and Kyo were positioning a stone block. "Or do they look confused?"

"They're heading straight for us," Tenten gasped, scrambling back down the pile. "Three of them, maybe two adults and a genin?"

"Well, we had best go see who's come calling," Kyo said, dusting off his hands as he straightened. "These stones have sat here for decades, they'll wait another hour or so."

"Naruto, you stay out of sight until we let you know it's safe. Konoha might have accidentally sent someone descended from an Uzushio shinobi, negating the seals. Above all else, they want you back alive. Each of us has to decide what's worth more to us if we're found. I cannot make that choice for you."

Sakura knew what her grandmother was saying. For the genin, there was a chance they could be returned to Konoha with little more than a slap on the wrist, depending on how complicit Konoha believed them to be in their departure. Naruto would be taken alive no matter what, given his jinchuuriki status. But the rest of them were expendable in the eyes of Konoha shinobi looking to recover the jinchuuriki.

With that sobering thought, they headed for the gate, bounding lightly over the rubble stacked in their way, having already adjusted to the feel of rock sliding underfoot. By the time they reached the gate, the three shinobi had drawn close enough that Sakura could identify them.

"Like _hell_ ," she snarled, plunging her hand into her kunai pouch, but Kyo's arm across her front kept her from moving forward.

"We're going to hear him out," Shiroyami ordered, steel in her voice. "I know what he's done, but we're not better than him in the eyes of Konoha right now."

"Yeah, but we didn't kill their _Kage_ ," Tenten muttered, and Sakura noticed her hand twitching towards her own kunai pouch.

"Hush." The order silenced them as the trio of shinobi crossed the river and made their way up the short slope to the gates.

"Orochimaru," Shiroyami greeted neutrally as Kyo dropped his arm, apparently trusting Sakura not to do something rash.

She wasn't completely sure she trusted herself, but the gesture was nice.

"Shiroyami." The snake sannin looked all the worse for wear, his arms hanging limply at his side and his face creased with what Sakura thought might be pain. Kabuto was standing at his side, but she had seen the spy supporting Orochimaru before they crossed the river. At the back of the group, a redheaded girl who couldn't be older than Sakura was looking about with wide eyes behind her red glasses. "It has been many years."

"Sadly, I missed you when you were last in Konoha," Shiroyami replied, leaning idly against the side of the gate. "Though I saw your work. The barrier seal seemed familiar."

"I made a few...modifications," he replied briefly, but Sakura caught his eyes looking past them at the brief glimpse of the ruined citadel that could be seen through the gate. "You have my...thanks for teaching me my birthright, although I still feel that Jiraiya was a bit of an excess."

"My home was in ruins," the woman replied, ignoring the betrayed look Sakura was sending her way. Her grandmother had taught Orochimaru _seals_? Orochimaru was from _Uzushio_? "It was my intention to preserve its legacy. At that point, I dared not hope that I would live long enough to see it rebuilt."

"You intend to rebuild it?" There was something almost like sharp desperation in his voice, longing in his eyes as he looked past them in earnest as if he was seeing something else. "Restore it to its glory?"

"We do," Shiroyami conceded. "I assume you felt her call?"

"Not even ROOT could stop my dreams..." Orochimaru whispered, and it was frightening to see the fearsome snake sannin who had dominated many of her nightmares until she had seen Gaara partially transform into the Ichibi crumble into a man. A man who had lost not one, but two homes in his lifetime. "Danzo-sama was...most displeased, even though he didn't know what it was."

"And you killed children."

"I killed sixty children trying to awaken Mokuton. I created a village and I used its people in experiments to further my own knowledge. I have taken other bodies in an attempt to extend my life. At my urging, Sunagakure allied with Oto and as they attacked Konoha I fought and killed my sensei using the resurrected Kages as my tools. In an attempt to fix my arms, I sought out my former teammate and tried to kill her when she refused me."

In the silence that followed this flat recitation of sins, Kabuto's muttered: " _To be honest, she tried to kill you first,_ " was clearly audible.

"Yet of the sannin, you alone were loyal to Konoha," Kyo mused suddenly, breaking the tension. "I may have spent my years wandering, but it was hard to miss the absence of Jiraiya and Tsunade on the battlefields during the Third War. In the initial skirmishes, it was you and the White Fang that held the lines, but after he committed suicide and the war began in earnest, your deeds were only ever eclipsed by the Yellow Flash."

"I remember how they treated you," Shiroyami continued, not letting up at all. "For every battle you won for them, they distanced themselves from you even further. Tsunade was long gone by that time, drowning in grief and sake, and Jiraiya was wrapped up in his prodigy, never having mended the rent he caused by staying in Ame. That was noticeable even to someone like me who had never seen you as a team."

" _Stop_ ," Orochimaru hissed, stumbling and falling to his knees as Kabuto and the girl with them tried to grab him but he shook them off. " _Please_...stop. You know my every sin, how I betrayed my village for knowledge. All I want is to try again...to finally come home. If you will not take me...I will leave, but I...am begging."

Sakura couldn't believe her eyes as the sannin bowed his head, long dark hair falling loose around him like a curtain. His appearance during the second part of the chuunin exams had terrified her, made her fear for the day when he returned for Sasuke, but now she felt as if she was looking at a different man, a broken man, waiting for the executioner's sword to fall.

"This is not absolution," Shiroyami warned arms crossed over her chest as she straightened from her previously casual stance leaning against the gate. "You have shown that you cannot be trusted, and you will have to earn trust. But I will not turn you away."

Kyo turned and looked into the shadows of the gate where Sakura suspected Naruto was skulking. "Come meet your cousin, kid."

Naruto slunk out, glaring at Orochimaru with his hand twitching towards his kunai pouch, much like Sakura's had been earlier until she had seen the proud sannin practically prostrate himself and _beg_ to be allowed to stay. Something curled in her gut, uncomfortably like pity, but she focused on her memories of the Sandaime's funeral, on seeing the Oto genin step out of the bushes while Naruto and Sasuke lay unconscious behind her.

"Cousin?" Naruto asked, eyes narrowed as he took in the trio in front of him. "Don't tell me I'm related to Jiji's murderer. Or glasses?"

Kabuto scowled, but Kyo laughed. "If you had ever seen Kushina-chan, you'd recognize your cousin straight off. Uzumaki, come meet Uzumaki Naruto. Who knows how you're related, but there's no way you're anything but an Uzumaki with that hair."

Cautiously, glancing at Kabuto and Orochimaru as if looking for permission, the girl approached, and Sakura frowned as she saw bite marks imprinted on her arms, visible when her sleeves rolled up. She was no expert, but that didn't seem right.

"Uzumaki Karin," she said sticking her hand out at Naruto, who was goggling at her. "I used to live in Kusa until I found Orochimaru. You were the one who shouted at the examiner during the end of the first test."

Sakura exchanged startled glances with Tenten. "You were at the chunin exam?"

"We got eliminated during the second part of the exam," the girl explained, adjusting her glasses. "My teammates and I didn't manage to get both scrolls."

"She looks like my _mom_?" Naruto finally managed to blurt out, seizing Karin's hand and gripping it so tightly Sakura couldn't miss the wince on Karin's face. But in half a second, she had yanked Naruto forward, wrenched her hand free, and tripped him, sending him down to the stones below with a look of satisfaction on her face.

Kyo roared with laughter, Shiroyami smirked, and Orochimaru lifted his head for the first time, eyes unreadable. "That's Kushina-chan to a T," Kyo snickered as his laughter wound down.

"Nah, Kushina-chan would have thrown him in the river," Shiroyami contributed.

Karin blushed, and Sakura couldn't help but giggle. "I'm Shiroyami Sakura," she said, offering the other girl her hand. "And that's Mori Tenten. We both got knocked out in the preliminaries after the second exam."

"What of your village?" Shioyami's voice drew their attention back to Orochimaru, who had risen from the ground with Kabuto's assistance while they were introducing themselves. "What will happen to Oto?"

"There are...those who could take over," Orochimaru said slowly, exchanging looks with Kabuto, whose face was impassive. "I would...ask for sanctuary for several others, if I could. The rest I would set free to choose their own path."

"Sanctuary to non-Uzushio descendents is a case by case situation," Kyo contributed after a glance at Shiroyami. "Once more people arrive, a council will be formed until a leader is elected. _Your_ residence is conditional as well, with the potential to change once a council convenes."

"And in the meantime?"

"Figure out how to put yourself back in your own body," Shiroyami said bluntly. "And then come back so we can talk about the seals you're going to wear until you earn trust."

"This...is my own body," the sannin replied, stretching out his arms as if they hurt, but he wanted to make a point. "Sarutobi-sensei sealed away my ability to use ninjutsu, which forced my previous host body to expire on an advanced timeline. I chose to return to my own body after…"

"What about Sasuke?" Sakura hissed, anger returning in full as she remembered her teammate lying prone on the forest floor, the way he tried to kill Naruto on the hospital roof…"What about him?"

The sannin glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow in recognition. "You. You were the third member of Team 7. I have...no further need of the Uchiha, if I am to stay in Uzushio. He may do what he wishes."

"And the mark on his neck?" she spat, narrowing his eyes. "What about _that_?"

"I do not know how to remove my cursed seals," he admitted with a shrug. "But I could attempt to research it, if circumstances allowed. Without me manipulating it, he should feel no adverse effects since it would remain dormant."

"If you're already in your own body," Shiroyami interrupted. "Then you will stay here. As you can imagine, Naruto's presence is not something we want advertised to the nations. You must stay, Uzumaki-san may choose to stay or go as she pleases, and your assistant may leave to dissolve your ties to Oto if he allows a binding seal to be placed on him so that he cannot speak of Uzushio."

Kabuto's face, not expressive by any means, looked positively shuttered as he exchanged a long look with Orochimaru. Something must have been agreed upon, because the spy looked back at Shiroyami and said: "If you can do the sealing tonight, I will leave in the morning."

"Agreed," Shiroyami said firmly. "Now, we have work to do before nightfall. I understand if you are unable to assist, but we will continue."

"I can help," Karin volunteered, pushing her glasses up from where they had slid down her nose. "What are you working on?"

"We're moving stone," Tenten said, indicating the three genin. "They're laying the foundation for what they say is the administrative building. But we can always use more hands moving stone."

Karin peeked past them at the gate and nodded. "Seems like there's plenty of stone to move," she pointed out. "Where do I put my pack?"

Sakura glanced at her grandmother, who tipped her head towards where the guardhouse was, unseen from outside the walls. Nodding, she motioned to Karin. "I'll show you where we stayed last night," she offered.

"You might as well get Uzumaki settled and then get back to shifting stone. I want to have the entire base assembled before we stop tonight," Shiroyami called as they headed through the gate, Tenten falling into place on Karin's other side, with Naruto trailing behind, still shooting glares at the snake sannin and his assistant.

"This is the only building that survived the fall," Tenten said as Karin set her pack against the wall. "We're going to be pretty thankful for it when it rains for the first time."

"That's assuming that we all still fit in it," Karin pointed out. Leaving the guardhouse, they headed for the fourth circle. "It's been what, two days since the first dream? And already we have eight shinobi here. Depending on how long it takes others to pack up their lives and get here without attracting much attention, we could be pretty busy in a month."

"Hopefully we'll have more buildings standing in a month," Sakura said with a shrug. "Now this is the fourth circle, where the administrative building was. We've been sorting the rocks…"

By the time the adults returned, Karin had adjusted to the routine of moving and sorting rubble, with enough energy to quibble with the hordes of Naruto clones that attempted to do everything for her. Sakura snickered behind their backs; that had been _her_ for several years at the Academy during Naruto's initial attempts to woo her. They'd soon see if Karin had the force of will to make him stop in the only way Sakura had managed to get through to him: with her fists.

To her shock, when the adults returned, Kabuto and Orochimaru were with them. Even more surprising was when Kabuto joined them, quietly asking Tenten how they sorted the rubble before helping to clear the space faster. Sakura did her best to ignore him, but it was almost impossible when she saw Orochimaru walking the perimeter of the building with Kyo and Shiroyami, helping them wedge stones into position, even though it seemed as if he couldn't lift them himself.

That night, Kabuto joined them inside the guardhouse, while Shiroyami and Kyo stayed outside around the small fire they had built to cook their evening meal. Deliberately, Sakura shifted her bedroll closer to Naruto's, noticing Tenten doing the same. Her teammate may snore like a horde of woodcutters, but it was better than being anywhere near Kabuto.

The former Konoha genin snorted and unrolled his bedroll close to the door. "I'm not going to eat you," he muttered under his breath with a roll of his eyes that was probably meant to be seen. "Honestly, we're shinobi. Can't we just let bygones be bygones?"

"Not when there were murder attempts," Naruto growled before Sakura could slap her hand over his mouth. It was one thing to _think_ it, but Kabuto was very obviously _not_ a genin, official status aside.

"Look," Kabuto sighed, stretching out on his bedroll and removing his glasses. "You obviously have some relatively legitimate problems with Orochimaru-sama and I, and nothing I'm going to say here is going to fix that. But for what it's worth, Orochimaru-sama can't use ninjutsu because of whatever the Sandaime did to him and they're going to put chakra suppression seals on him tonight so that's just going to cripple him even further for the time being."

Sakura was fairly certain that there was more the silver haired teen wanted to say, but all he did was turn his back to them, facing the wall blocking them from the sight of the adults, who, if he was telling the truth, were likely sealing away much of the snake sannin's chakra as they snapped at each other in the dim light inside the guardhouse. Subdued, she slipped under the covers of her own bedroll, guessing from the rustling that Naruto, Tenten, and Karin were doing the same. Eventually the familiar sound of Naruto snoring filled the air, and she fell into a restless sleep, peppered with dreams of the Forest of Death and the broken sannin she had glimpsed on the path leading to Uzushio.

* * *

By the end of the week, Sakura had settled into the pattern that had become her days in Uzushio.

More people had come, just as her grandmother had said, both civilians and shinobi. It had surprised her, how far these people had scattered, some coming from closer parts such as Kumo and Fire, and others coming from as far away as Suna and Iwa. Some were ninja who had joined another village because that was the only thing they knew. Others had been like Kyo and took to wandering as unaffiliated shinobi.

And then there were those like her, born of Uzushio bloodlines but having never set foot in the citadel until the day they arrived. Since they weren't being divided into genin teams immediately, the younger generation tended to stick together as a whole, teaching each other all of the things that they had learned from their villages and parents and grandparents.

 _It's nice_ , _learning like this_ , Sakura reflected as she, Tenten, and Karin bathed in the river that flowed outside of the citadel gates. Shiroyami and several others had determined that the pumps and generators had been undamaged by the fall, protected in sealed underground chambers, but until they had cleared the rubble and run new wires it was unsafe to start them again. So instead they oriented their days around the rise and fall of the sun, used fire for light during the night hours, and bathed in the river, which was only cold when you first jumped in.

Safely ensconced behind the privacy seal that was the first thing every new shinobi arrival learned because _there was no privacy_ in a citadel with no buildings, Sakura dove under the water, avoiding the suds from where Karin was washing her hair. Tenten was perched on one of the ruined bridge supports, combing out her hair before she put it back up for the night, and somewhere up the river Naruto was probably arguing with one of the genin Kabuto had brought with him from Oto while Kyo refereed.

"Incoming," Karin was calling as Sakura surfaced. "Two people, both shinobi. Moving slowly though."

"Powerful?" Tenten asked as she braided her hair back and pinned it up while Sakura pulled her clothes back on, even though she had yet to wash her hair or even dry off.

"One of them is," Karin said, sliding into her own clothing as Tenten threw three rocks to alert Kyo that someone was approaching. It was the signal all of them had worked out, since the river was beyond the misdirection seal for the moment, although that was something Shiroyami and the elder shinobi meant to change as soon as they could. Under the privacy seals that protected them from prying eyes, not even other Uzushio residents could find them, which meant that finding a way to signal approaching people had been critical.

"We're the last group to bathe, right?" Sakura wrung out her hair as Tenten deactivated the seal. "And they're far enough away that we can get back to the gates, right?"

"All the civilians bathed while we were finishing raising the walls," the brunette replied as Karin said: "They're just coming up on the hill right now."

With a nod, Sakura headed back up towards the gates, letting out the low whistle that one of the other Uzushio shinobi had taught all of the genin. It had apparently been standard Uzushio practice to whistle commands when voicing them was too dangerous. The genin had made a game out of it, holding entire whistled conversations while they were working to raise the walls of the administration building until they had been told to cut it out.

An answering whistle came back, and she could hear the notes of her original whistle being carried on the late summer evening's air as the message was passed from person to person. There were enough people that they could afford to post guards at the gates, but usually only those who were too old or infirm to assist with the rebuilding. During the day, the civilians worked to clear more space for them to camp in the first circle around the main fire in front of the guardhouse, but most of them were out in the harbor with nets and lines, working to catch and dry enough fish to help see the citadel's population through the oncoming winter.

Kyo met them at the gate, leaning easily on his staff while Naruto and Suigetsu bickered behind him and Juugo looked on with a slightly annoyed air. "Who's coming to call, Karin-chan?"

"Two shinobi," she reported as Shiroyami came up out of the growing darkness to join them. "Moving slowly, but one's pretty powerful. They just reached the edge of the outer village."

"If they're moving slowly they're probably not pursuit," Shiroyami said thoughtfully. "Plus a scouting squad would have more people. Is there anyone else new on the island?"

"No new shinobi, but there's civilians camped on the road for the night. They'll probably reach here by tomorrow."

There was a subtle shifting behind them as civilians shifted further into the first circle and shinobi moved to place themselves closer to the gate. So far, nobody had come looking for Uzushio who hadn't belonged to her, but with each passing day they knew the villages would be searching for their missing shinobi. Many of them weren't valuable, outside of being cannon fodder for low rank missions, but it was a principles thing. Villages didn't like having their shinobi leave without notice.

Casually, Sakura placed herself in front of Naruto, Tenten and Karin taking up positions at her sides. Naruto was supposed to wait until new arrivals had been cleared before greeting them, but the blond was revelling in so many people who didn't care that he was a jinchuuriki and was less wary that he should be. Even now he was trying to peer over their shoulders to see the shinobi approaching.

It was easy to see the pair as they approached the river. A tall woman, cloaked in a black robe that would have blended with the growing darkness if not for the red clouds upon it, and a man with shaggy red hair practically being carried as they crossed the river.

"Who are you?" Shiroyami called, drawing their attention to the shinobi presence in the gates. "Speak your peace."

"This is Uzushio, correct?" the woman called softly. "We've come in search of it."

"You have reached the citadel of Uzushio, but we do not know who you are. Answer that question before demanding more information."

There was a ripple in the shinobi behind her, and Sakura caught a glimpse of Kabuto slipping through the gathered bodies until he was behind her grandmother, murmuring softly. An almost imperceptible nod, and he was slipping back into the crowd.

"I am Konan no Amegakure," the woman replied after exchanging a glance with her companion. "And with me is…"

"Nagato no Amegakure," a tired voice said as the man lifted his head slightly. "But I once knew a man who thought I might be an Uzumaki."

"The Sannin Jiraiya had three students," Shiroyami stated flatly. "Where is Yahiko no Amegakure?"

"Dead," the man rasped. "Killed by Hanzo the Salamander years ago."

"Does that mean I am looking at the true leader of Akatsuki then?"

Behind her, Naruto growled, and Sakura felt him attempt to shove past her. Linking arms with Karin and Tenten, she fought to keep him behind her. Something about that name meant something to him, and if it made Naruto react like this it was likely nothing good.

"You are...better informed than most," Konan said after a startled pause. "Very few know that we three had been students of Jiraiya, let alone that we formed Akatsuki."

"I knew Jiraiya, and if you know where to listen, you will hear whispers of Akatsuki. Why have you come here?"

"Home," the man said hoarsely. "I want to come home."

"And what of your peace?" Kyo asked, taking up the line of questioning. "Will you give up your pursuit of the jinchuuriki in exchange for being allowed to return to your clan's ancestral home?"

"I would." Interrupted by a coughing fit that shook his entire body, the man had to wait until he was able to speak again before looking up at them with strange, ringed purple eyes. "I would."

"Come into the citadel, Uzumaki Nagato," Shiroyami said slowly as whispering broke out among the shinobi gathered in the gate. "We will talk."

 *****Another week, another chapter! Still very busy, but a lot of people to introduce. Much of my love of Orochimaru comes from black. k. kat's portrayal of him, so definitely go check out anything she's written!*****


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four:**

As the shinobi in the gates shuffled around, moving back to their bedrolls and tents, Sakura worked on herding Naruto backwards without letting the visitors catch sight of him. From the cryptic hints her grandmother and Kyo were dropping, they were just about as welcome as Orochimaru would be in Konoha right now. Her arms were still linked with Tenten and Karin's, the three of them providing a living barrier as they struggled to shift the blonde deeper into the shadows.

And then, all of the sudden, Naruto slumped bonelessly to the ground. Twisting, Sakura released the arms of the other two and stooped to check on him. Oddly enough, he seemed fine, if completely out of it.

"Pick him up and come with me," a voice whispered, and Sakura caught the glint of Kabuto's glasses in a bit of light from the campfire. "We shouldn't linger here."

Sakura and Tenten eyed the silver-haired genin for a long moment, but Karin was already slipping her shoulder under Naruto's arm and heaving him to his feet. Not wanting Naruto anywhere alone with one of Orochimaru's minions, Sakura hurried to support Naruto's other shoulder and follow in Kabuto's footsteps, with Tenten casually bringing up the rear.

He led them to the fourth circle, heading for the skeletal frame of the administrative building. They had raised the last of the exterior walls that day, leaving it standing four stories high, once they put a roof on it and built the floors in between. Sakura had watched amazed as Shiroyami and many of the returned shinobi called it together by activating seals embedded into the stone. According to them, it was insurance against the winter storms: what was broken could be fused back together and then covered with a fresh coat of stucco to disguise the brokenness. The inner floors would be formed in much the same way, called out of heaps of stone from the top of the building to the bottom, waiting for fresh floors and doors and windows to be placed.

Orochimaru was waiting in the doorway, a long katana tucked into the sash at his waist. "Good work Kabuto," he murmured, eyes fixed on the central fire in the first circle. "Get him inside."

"Are you kidnapping Naruto?" Sakura asked, slipping out from under his shoulder and facing the sannin with her hands on her hips. She knew that the chances of her being able to get a kunai out before the man gutted her were slim, but if something was going to happen to Naruto, she wanted to make sure she went down fighting.

The snake sannin rolled his eyes and tipped his head towards the interior of the building. "Hardly. Pein and Konan are the leaders of a group of S-ranked missing-nin who have made it their mission to hunt down and capture the jinchuuriki in the name of world peace. I may have worn their colors once, but I have sworn myself to Uzushio. I will do all that I can to protect her future."

"What does Naruto have to do with Uzushio's future?" Tenten asked as she came to stand at Sakura's side.

"Children are the future of any village," Orochimaru murmured, eyes distant as he looked past them into the night. "They are the next generation of parents and teachers and defenders. If they are lost, the community will fail."

Still suspicious, Sakura helped Karin shuffle Naruto into the shadowy interior, surprise overtaking the suspicion as Kabuto led them to the corner where the entrance to the vault was, re-covered and anonymous, except for early in the mornings and late at night when the new shinobi arrivals were being ushered down to renew their vows to the citadel and bolster the barrier that kept them safe.

"Shiroyami told us that Uzumaki's blood should be sufficient to open the seals," Kabuto murmured as they propped Naruto against the wall. "His blood, and a simple ' _kai_ '. If Orochimaru-sama tells us to, you are to take him and get into the vaults. At the entrance to the seal chamber, his blood on the stone and a chakra-infused touch will seal the vaults. Don't come up until you run out of supplies if you go into the vaults."

"Why do you know this?" Tenten challenged, hands on her hips. "Why didn't Shiroyami-taichou tell us this herself?"

"When we swore our oaths to Uzushio," Kabuto said, turning so that they couldn't see his face, even though the darkness kept them from seeing more than just the outline of his features. "When Orochimaru-sama and I let them place the seals upon us, we were tasked with a lone goal: Protect Uzumaki Naruto if someone should come looking for him. The Kyuubi no Kitsune cannot fall into the hands of those that would use it for harm. We are to give everything, including our lives, if necessary, to ensure that he survives and remains free of the villages' influence. Jinchuuriki were never meant to be tools."

They fell silent, ears straining for noise from outside. The waiting was oppressive.

"You said they were leaders of a group of missing-nin?" Sakura eventually asked as she let herself slip down to sit next to Naruto's unconscious form. "Tell us about them."

Tenten was braiding her hair back for the night, and Karin had already sat down, tipping her head against the wall with her eyes closed, probably sensing chakra signatures all over the island. Both of them turned their faces towards the gaping doorway, where Orochimaru's form stood.

"Konan and Pein are from Amegakure," Kabuto said after another long moment. "They call her _Angel_. As the original founders of Akatsuki, they are in charge of everything, from missions to recruiting new members. They only have seven other members, but they're all S-ranked."

"So, nine S-ranked missing-nin are after the jinchuuriki?" Tenten summarized as she swung her braided hair over her shoulder and dropped down to sit crosslegged on Naruto's other side. "That's cutting it close, seeing as how there are nine jinchuuriki to start with."

"They operate in pairs," the silver haired genin replied softly. "It apparently makes things easier. Akasuna no Sasori and Deidara no Iwa are the first pair. According to the Bingo Book, Sasori is legendary for his puppetry and poisons, having taken down an entire country with them. Deidara is an explosive expert who was once the prodigy student of the Tsuchikage. Kakazu no Taki and Hidan no Yugakure are both considered immortals. Kakazu left Taki after being punished for failing to kill the Shodaime Hokage, and Hidan left after slaughtering what was left of his village after they ceased being ninja."

"Pein and Konan, Sasori and Deidara, and Kakazu and Hidan," Sakura repeated slowly. "Ame, Suna, Iwa, Taki, and Yugakure. That's only six."

"There's Zetsu, who is some...hybrid. Nobody outside the organization has seen him and lived," Kabuto continued with a shrug that was barely visible. "No shinobi from Kumo, which is its only redeeming feature." He snorted, seemed to stretch, and then returned to his recitation. "Hoshigaki Kisame, formerly one of Kiri's Seven Swordsmen, and his partner Uchiha Itachi, formerly of Konoha, round out the group."

Sakura growled at the last name. "So that's who Sasuke-kun was going to kill," she muttered, balling her hands into fists. "It makes sense, that he would kill an Uchiha who is a missing-nin."

"What do you know of the Uchiha Massacre?" Kabuto asked lightly, his tone making the hackles on the back of her neck stand up.

"That Sasuke was the only survivor," she replied carefully, not sure what he was looking for.

With a slight hum, Kabuto continued, still in that same, light tone. "So, you know the official line. Poor little Sasuke-kun, all alone in the world now. Isn't that sad?"

"So, so very sad, all on its own that the village didn't bother telling the common folk the rest of the story. After all, you don't want too many people realizing that it was the Uchiha's best and brightest who killed them all. Every last man, woman, and child, all of whom were related to him by blood or by marriage. And poor Sasuke-kun, who lived only because he came home late from training to find his beloved older brother murdering their parents."

Bile churned in Sakura's stomach. _Clan killer_. In Konoha, if you had a clan, your clan was everything. You were loyal to the village, of course, but after that? Always, always your clan. For one of Konoha's largest clans to be entirely wiped out by their heir? It went against everything that she knew.

"How do _you_ know all of this?" Tenten asked, voice hard in the darkness. "If this was kept hushed up by the village, how is it that you know?"

"My...guardian was well placed in the hospital," Kabuto answered easily, the light tone he had used earlier vanished from his voice, replaced with something unreadable. "Because of that, and with my unique situation of being taught basic medical ninjutsu, I was asked to look after him for a few hours. It was thought that having a younger companion might encourage him to open up a bit."

Sakura snorted. "I'm sure that actually helped," she retorted dryly.

"The Uchiha spoke only during his debriefing," Kabuto confirmed.

"You knew medical ninjutsu even though you were young?" Medic-nins, at least the good ones, usually took at least a year and a half of study outside of the Academy, more if they tried to keep up with their genin teammates at the same time. For Kabuto to be skilled enough for them to leave a recently traumatized child with him...he couldn't be more than four years older than them, could he?

"I learned chakra control very young," the other genin confirmed. "Because I expressed an interest, and showed remarkable persistence in stealing his texts, my guardian began my training young. According to him, I would have been able to pass the qualification exam easily, had I wanted to specialize in medicine."

"Had you not been a spy," Tenten pointed out sourly.

"Had Orochimaru-sama not preferred that I spend more of my time among the students," Kabuto conceded lightly. "I expect, given the lack of medical personnel here at the moment, that I will be placed in the hospital once it is built."

"Naruto said that you used medical ninjutsu offensively," Sakura said, trying to figure out how to phrase it. "Tsunade-sama, even though she's a great medic-nin, the reports say she relies on her strength, rather than converting medical ninjutsu to offensive use."

"She can use it both to heal and to hinder," Kabuto said flatly, and Sakura wondered if that meant that he had experienced the latter firsthand. "However, the sannin does prefer to rely on her ridiculously overpowered strikes to flatten. Medical ninjutsu is much more subtle, much more delicate, more of an assassin's skillset than a frontline fighter's. When Tsunade was trained, the village was in need of frontline fighters. My own youth focused me on a more subtle adaptation."

Conversation dwindled after that.

By the time her grandmother trekked up from the first circle with their bedrolls, Sakura was fairly certain that Karin was actually asleep while sitting up, and she and Tenten had shifted to sitting with their backs to each other in front of the sleeping Uzumaki cousins, pinching each other when the pressure started to falter.

Kabuto and Orochimaru seemed to have no problems, both of them solid, unmoving figures in the darkness, only moving as footsteps on the rubble could be heard; intentional, since Sakura had learned that her grandmother was perfectly capable of moving without a sound when she chose to.

"Pein?" Orochimaru asked as he followed Shiroyami into the shell of the administration building, hand still resting on the hilt of the sheathed sword tucked into the sash of his kimono shirt.

"Staying. Konan will return to dissolve Akatsuki in the morning. Nagato is our insurance for good behavior, though she agreed to bear the seal."

"Is Naruto going to be safe?" Sakura asked, standing tiredly as she reached for the bedrolls her grandmother was carrying. "They were hunting jinchuuriki."

"They've sworn not to," her grandmother replied, passing Tenten one bedroll before handing Sakura hers. "And it appears there may have been a person pulling strings in the darkness. Without more information, it is impossible to speculate."

They shuffled around a little, laying out bedrolls and making sure Naruto made it into his. Whatever Kabuto had done to knock him out was still in effect, or he had progressed into natural sleep. Waking him in the mornings was always...more difficult than it should be for a shinobi, although Sakura had a long way to go before she woke to complete alertness like the more seasoned shinobi among them. Karin opened her eyes and laid out her bedroll next to Naruto before curling up under the covers to return to sleep, and Tenten joined her. Closest to the door, Sakura watched as Kabuto took his own bedroll with a polite nod and carried it over to place it in front of the opening, so that anyone who tried to approach them during the night had to step over him first.

It was a surprising gesture, and Sakura fell asleep turning its significance over in her head while listening to the barely audible murmur of her grandmother's conversation with Orochimaru outside the walls of the administration building.

* * *

The building itself was no longer a shell by the time Konan returned, this time without the distinctive cloak.

With her were six others.

"Oh _hells_ ," Kyo muttered as he stood beside Sakura and the other genin as they watched from the top of the administration building where they were busy slapping stucco onto the building to seal the gaps where the stones didn't quite fit together while the older shinobi began work on constructing other buildings in the fourth circle. The planning meetings held at night around the central fire had elected to adopt the Hidden Villages' system of academies for young students and conformity to the genin-chuunin-jounin-ANBU system that had make comparing shinobi between villages easier. It was what so many had gotten used to or been trained in that they saw no point in returning to ways that were unfamiliar or out of practice. So work on the Academy had started, adjacent to the administrative building, and once that was further underway, the hospital in the second circle would be next.

For the moment though, the genin were one large workforce, augmented by Naruto's clones, and overseen by a different jounin or higher shinobi each day. To them fell the mindless tasks, and Sakura knew that she had new appreciation for Tazuna and his crew after raising the administration building, already home to them, in a awkward, communal fashion. They may have placed floors and called back walls into being based on what the seals on the stones themselves remembered, but there was still no privacy. Families were lumped together, but most of the genin had claimed one large room for all of their belongings as a communal dormitory slash common space.

As Karin had whistled the signal for _approaching shinobi_ , every genin had stopped their work and shifted to get a better view of the gates. Shiroyami and the rest of her welcoming committee had already headed down, shooing the civilians on fishing duty back inside the protection of the walls. New arrivals, while still coming, were fewer and fewer every day.

"That's Akatsuki," Tenten muttered from her place next to Sakura, sticking her trowel back in the bucket they were sharing. "See, recognize the woman at the front?"

Her blue hair was fairly distinctive in the group, even from a distance, but Sakura didn't recognize any of the others.

"We thought the villages would crucify us over _Orochimaru_ ," Kyo groaned, running his hand through his short brown hair. "Nobody but Konoha really knows Nagato or Konan, but the _rest_ of Akatsuki? They're going to have more reasons to want to destroy us than they did before."

"Which is which?" Sakura asked, studying the group of figures approaching the gates where the welcoming party stood. "I mean, I know which one is Konan…"

"The one with silver hair is Hidan," Orochimaru's voice said suddenly from behind them, and she turned to see Kabuto and the snake sannin positioned next to the original Naruto. "Formerly of Yugakure, when it was still a shinobi village. Next to him is Kakazu, who Taki sent to kill the Shodaime Hokage."

"The short redhead is Akasuna no Sasori, not another Uzumaki cousin," Kyo joined in dryly. "And the Yamanaka look-alike is Deidara no Iwa. Mind your step around him, he's fairly fond of booby traps according to those who have survived an encounter with him."

"Oh joy," Karin muttered from behind Tenten, next to one of the genin that Kabuto had brought with him. "A prankster who _enjoys_ damaging things."

"The tall one with blue hair, that's Hoshigaki Kisame," Hozuki Suigetsu chimed in from Karin's other side with a look of awe on his face. "He wields Samehada, one of Kiri's great swords."

"And that leaves Uchiha Itachi," Sakura murmured, studying the dark haired man next to Hoshigaki. _He_ was the one responsible for the breakup of her team. Briefly, she wondered what Sasuke was doing, without Konoha or Oto, but she pushed the thoughts aside. "But what are they all doing here?"

"Konan and Nagato petitioned successfully for the missing-nin they had recruited to have a chance to plead their case for sanctuary before the council," Kyo explained as the newly arrived group adjourned to the central gathering place in the first circle, what had been the site of the largest fire before they had moved to the administration building. "Apparently all of them were willing to try their luck with our mercy."

"If they're not admitted?" one of the other genin called nervously. "What happens then?"

"The knowledge of Uzushio is placed behind a seal that prohibits them from communicating it," Orochimaru explained smoothly, his face expressionless. "The seals are keyed to a master seal here in the citadel; once it is dispelled, they will be bound no longer."

"Would we really consider allowing them in?" Sakura asked Kyo softly. She had understood why they let Orochimaru in, since he was rightfully one of Uzushio's shinobi by blood, but the others had no claim to Uzushio, one of them was even from _Kiri…._

"It is up to the council," Kyo replied with a shrug. "There's something to be said for six S-ranked shinobi among our numbers, even if they're missing-nin. And some of them…"

He sighed. "Take away a shinobi's village, try to retire him into tourism when all he's known is killing? Sakura-chan, you may not realize it, but some people are taught from such a young age how to be a shinobi that without it there's nothing left. Hidan may be a missing-nin, but if his village had continued to be a shinobi village, I doubt he would have defected. And Taki turned its back on Kakazu after setting him an impossible task, so there's that to consider. Kiri's been losing shinobi left and right since their Yondaime came to power, so it could very well be that Hoshigaki was driven out instead of choosing to leave. That leaves us with only three shinobi to try to find something to trust."

Kyo sighed again before clapping his hands. "Alright, back to work. We want to have this finished by tomorrow so you can help clear the site for the hospital."

Grumbling, the genin turned back to the administration building, reaching for the buckets of stucco they had abandoned to gawk at the new arrivals.

* * *

They were kept busy enough for the next few hours that they didn't have a chance to spy on the meeting from afar. Kabuto picked up a trowel and joined them, working quietly alongside some of the genin who didn't immediately place him as Orochimaru's spy in Konoha, but the snake sannin himself stayed perched on the roof, watching over the entire scene.

 _Watching over Naruto_ , Sakura admitted as she watched the blond race Suigetsu and Karin down the wall, careful to avoid any wet stucco. With the whole of Akatsuki present, there was no telling if Naruto was truly in danger or not.

She followed at a more sedate pace, knowing that there would still be plenty of river for her to wash in, and supper to follow after. With the port unusable for the time being, there was no way they would be able to get supply ships before the winter storms made travelling by sea unpredictable. So they would have to dry what fish they could, ration their other supplies, and trade with those who had never left the island at all.

After a quick bath in the river, she and Tenten returned to the first floor of the administrative building, where meals were dished out. Most of the civilians had eaten and retired to their sleeping rooms, leaving only shinobi present. They gathered in small groups, eating their portions and talking quietly, sharing stories of their lives since the fall of Uzushio.

Except for this particular night, where all of the attention was focused on the group gathered in the center of the room.

The former Akatsuki members were silent as they ate, none of them glancing up to look around them and take in the reactions of the other shinobi who would be captains, subordinates, _teammates_...to Sakura, it seemed like arrogance.

But then she saw the dark head of hair, sandwiched between two blue haired forms, and she very nearly saw red.

"Sakura," Tenten whispered, tugging on her arm as the pink haired girl stopped dead on their way to get their meals. "Sakura, come _on_."

"How did _he_ convince them to let him stay here?" she hissed, balling her hands into fists. Sakura was well aware that the older Uchiha was ranked at the same level as Orochimaru. She didn't need to suffer a crushing defeat to know that she was outmatched. But expressing her displeasure through her fists still seemed to be an adequate response to seeing Uchiha Itachi calmly eating dinner in the place she now called home.

"Sakura," a voice called, and she was distracted enough to look up and see her grandmother coming down from the upper floors. "Get your dinner and bring Tenten-san. You probably have some questions. Where's Naruto-san?"

"Probably attempting to drown Hozuki in the river," Tenten said with a shrug. It was probably true, given that the two were engaged in a personality clash even more epic than the one that Naruto and Sasuke shared. "Kyo's watching, so they'll both survive."

Her grandmother sighed, but shepherded them through the serving line and up the stairs to the small room that the hastily elected council used sometimes when they needed to meet. "I know you two will have quite strong feelings about Uchiha, coming from Konoha."

"Considering that he killed all but one of his clan members?" Tenten snorted as she dropped down to the ground and began eating. "I'd say that's a pretty good reason to wonder why you let him in."

"Contrary to popular belief, the Massacre wasn't the result of one man's psychotic break," Shiroyami corrected sternly. "It isn't my place to share, because this is something that was successfully buried by those who orchestrated it. That man has shown true remorse; it's about time that someone started putting their faith in him."

"If you won't tell us why we should trust him, then why should we?" Sakura demanded. Sasuke's actions may have soured her on the boy, but years of habit were hard to break. Uzushio was worth more to her than winning his affections could ever amount to.

"You trust me, don't you?"

Reluctantly, Sakura nodded. She trusted her grandmother with a number of things, but it was hard to accept that a clan killer could suddenly by innocent.

"I'm not saying that he's innocent," her grandmother continued, leaning against the wall. "But there were a number of failures that led to the Massacre, and though he should have found another way, he is not the only one at fault."

"Why not send him back to Konoha then?" Tenten asked as Sakura mulishly glared down at her food. "If there were others involved in the Massacre, something so big that it necessitated a cover up, shouldn't Konoha know?"

"Even if he went back," Shiroyami sighed, rubbing her temples. "They would execute him rather than risk him spilling his secrets. Uzushio can offer him what no other place can offer."

"What's that?" Sakura asked, curious. To her, Uzushio offered her a home. It offered _Orochimaru_ a home. But the Uchiha had always belonged to Konoha.

"Atonement."

The word hung in the air for a heavy moment before the silence was broken by the sound of yelling from the floor below.

Tenten set her bowl down with a sigh. "And that would be Naruto, back from the river to discover our newest members."

"One of these days," Sakura heard her grandmother mutter as she left the room, "I'm going to get Orochimaru to bring his mother back so she can beat some sense into him."

 *****That's the last of the arrivals! We can now move on to focusing on the rebuilding and other fun things like that.*****


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Three months. Three months since she had left Konoha, and Sakura had never felt more at peace with the decision. They had raised the administration building, the new Academy, and the hospital, and were slowly but surely making progress on other buildings as well. As a genin, Sakura had mainly been stuck clearing sites and sorting rubble, but because of her chakra control she had been allowed to help the chuunin and jounin level shinobi every once in awhile, if they were spread too thin on any particular workday.

Something woke her in the middle of the night, and she sat up slowly, hand curling under the kunai she now slept with under her pillow. Ever since the former members of Akatsuki had arrived she never went anywhere without being fully armed. Just in case something happened.

There was nothing out of place in the room she was sharing with Karin and Tenten, what would probably be a teacher's office or supply closet once the Academy was actually hosting classes instead of acting as the shinobi barracks. Sliding out from under her bedcovers, Sakura padded out into the hallway, shivering slightly at the feel of cold stone under her bare feet. She wouldn't be able to sleep until she made sure that whatever had woken her wasn't a threat.

At the end of the hallway of the floor where the genin slept, there was a large window, overlooking the harbor and the sea beyond. The moon was full tonight, making the corridor well-lit despite the late hour, illuminating the figure perched on the wide ledge of the window.

"If you're not careful," Sakura said, setting her kunai on the floor and slipping onto the windowsill herself, "You might fall asleep and end up on the ground. Can the Kyuubi save you from that?"

Naruto didn't look at her, his eyes fixed on the sea outside. "Do you ever think we're the bad guys, Sakura-chan?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, wondering what was bothering him. He had been rather quiet of late, but she had figured it was because the workload was getting heavier as they tried to finish a few more buildings before the winter storms began. "We're just genin."

"But we're _missing-nin_ ," the blond explained, and she saw he was twisting his hands in his lap. "We left our village. Just like Orochimaru, or those Akatsuki guys."

 _Just like Sasuke_ went unsaid between them, but it was understood all the same.

"Was Konoha ever our home though?" Sakura responded quietly, resting her head on the stone window frame behind her. It was something she had struggled with at first, the knowledge that she had willingly left the village that she had sworn to protect, that had given her training while asking for only her service...and she left it without even thinking. Her parents were still there, probably worried sick over their missing daughter and mother, Kakashi-sensei was…

Well, to be honest, Kakashi-sensei probably deserved to sweat a little bit, if he even was bothered that she was gone as well as his other two students.

The blond looked torn as he turned to face her. "I...I had Iruka-sensei. And Jiji. And Team 7. And old man Ichiraku. And I was going to be Hokage. But…"

 _But the Sandaime was dead._ Sakura filled in. _And Sasuke beat you up and was gone, and I was leaving. The people who ran the ramen stand and Iruka were kind, and you might have possibly become Hokage, but you would have had to fight for every scrap of respect you earned._

Her former teammate may not have noticed it, but under the blanket acceptance he found in Uzushio, he had relaxed. Breathed easier. His squabbles with Suigetsu, and his gentle rivalry with Karin now that she had shown him that she wasn't a delicate flower, had none of the angry, sharp edges that his rivalry with Kiba and Sasuke had. Instead of _look-at-me-damn-it_ , he seemed to be saying _I-am-one-of-you-and-that's-not-something-I-have-to-earn_.

"Sometimes," she began, reaching out to touch his hand where it had unconsciously come to rest over his stomach where she presumed the seal for the Kyuubi was. "Sometimes, we are in a place and for the time being, it's home, but it's not _really_ our home. Like my grandmother, and all of the other shinobi. They made their home elsewhere, it was Uzushio all along. Even though we had never seen it, Uzushio was ours, even when we didn't know her. So, I don't think it's a bad thing that you miss Konoha. I do too, sometimes. But Uzushio, at least to me, is worth it. That's something you'll have to decide for yourself, in the end."

She squeezed his hand gently and stood up, picking up her kunai as she went. "Don't stay up too late thinking," Sakura murmured, heading back to her room. "We have our reassignment into genin squads in the morning. And I think the council is going to hand out hitai-ites too, although they were arguing about it when I left the administration building."

Naruto nodded, and Sakura left him to his thoughts. She couldn't make the decision, and her presence wouldn't be much of a help in the end. All she could do was say her part and let him reason it out for himself.

* * *

They had convened right next to the administrative building after breakfast.

All of the genin perched on whatever rubble piles were nearest, conversing softly with the friends they had made. Unsurprisingly, they had an uneven number of genin for the standard three man squad assignments, so none of them could really make any guesses about where they were headed.

"I doubt they're going to keep us on the same squad," Sakura told Naruto, who looked none the worse for wear after their late night conversation. "It won't do much for unity if they keep us divided by where we were from originally."

"So, by that logic, there's going to be at least three teams, one for each of us," Tenten chipped in from where she was inventorying her weapons pouch. "At least we don't have to worry about a graduation exam."

"Does anyone know how they're going to assign missions?" Karin asked, swatting Suigetsu's hand away as he attempted to pull at her hair, braided back for the day in a long plait down her back. "I mean, we can't follow the normal village patterns, so that's going to be a problem right there."

"Things probably won't change all that much," another of the genin, a quiet girl from Kumo named Ran, contributed. "They probably just want to train us to chuunin level, so that way we're more capable when something happens. Just helping with the reconstruction isn't honing our ninja skills besides chakra control."

"Well, here they come," Juugo pointed out from where he was sitting at the top of the pile closest to the corner of the building. "So there's no use speculating any more."

The first of the genin instructors to appear was a female jounin Sakura had worked with on the hospital reconstruction named Honoka, who had been a genin herself when Uzushio fell before following her instructor and becoming a nomad. She reminded Sakura a little bit of Team 8's sensei, although with more sharp edges and obvious danger, likely from never having a village to call home. After calling three genin from the group (two boys and a girl, all of them old enough to probably test for chuunin and pass quickly), she led them back around the corner of the administration building.

Karin was called next, along with another boy who Sakura thought was called Isamu, by another of Uzushio's former jounin, who Sakura was fairly certain was named Kaito. Given that they had just gone from Team 6 to Team 3, they probably weren't going in any logical order, so Sakura settled in to wait for her summons.

Kyo appeared next, and Sakura couldn't help but envy Juugo and Tenten for having him as their sensei. Since that left them with eighteen genin, the remaining teams would be evenly divided by threes as was normal.

As a head of bright blond hair appeared, Sakura reflexively looked for Ino, but scowled when she saw it was Deidara. _Apparently_ he had proven himself trustworthy enough to not only be admitted into Uzushio, but to become a genin sensei. She wondered what stories he had told the council, and was thankful that it was Suigetsu and two others summoned to make up Team 2, considering the boy was very nearly indestructible from what Sakura had seen.

Left alone with Naruto, Sakura began to harbor vague hopes of remaining with her former teammate, but she was distracted as the final two senseis came around the corner.

Snarling softly, she curled her lip as she glared at Uchiha Itachi, who walked alongside Hoshigaki Kisame as if it was perfectly natural for him to take a genin team. Hoshigaki laughed at something, clapped Uchiha on the back, and bellowed: "Uzumaki, Minami, Yamada. You're with me. Let's move."

Naruto stayed put, eying the former missing-nin with skepticism and stubbornness. "You tried to kidnap me!"

"And now I have no reason to," the man sighed, adjusting the hilt of his sword from where it protruded over his shoulder. "Look, they assigned you to me because of the Kyuubi. Apparently I'm the only one they think can keep up with you if you lose it, so good luck changing their minds."

Grumbling, Naruto joined Ran and another boy as they picked their way down the rubble pile to trail obediently after Hoshigaki. Scowling, Sakura turned to face the last jounin sensei.

"Ikeda, Shimizu, Shiroyami, follow me," the Uchiha ordered, moving past the rubble piles towards the mountains that provided the back boundary of the city. Grudgingly, Sakura obeyed, falling into line with her new teammates, who she only knew peripherally. Both were from...Kumo, she thought, trying to remember, but only one of them had actually been taught by the village? It was difficult to keep everyone's origins straight.

To her surprise, Uchiha led them through what appeared to be a crack in the smooth stone of the mountains and onto a rocky path. "Where are you taking us?" Ikeda ventured warily, eying the stone walls that stretched up on either side of them.

"The training grounds are shinobi-knowledge-only," Uchiha explained, taking the left path at one of the forks. "As such, they are hidden from casual observers."

When they finally reached a large open area, with a few trees clustered at one end and a tiny pond that seemed too sculpted to be anything but the result of a suiton or other manmade occurrence, Uchiha directed them to a smoothed stone bench on the perimeter.

"One at a time," he said as he dropped down in front of them to sit cross-legged. "I want your name, your place of birth, how long ago you became a genin, if you've ever tested for chuunin and how far you got, and your best shinobi skill and the skill you feel needs most work."

Ikeda started off the introductions with a grin. "I'm Ikeda Haru, originally from Kumogakure, and I've been a genin for a year. My team and I were supposed to test in the next chuunin exams. My best skill is ninjutsu, and I've been told to work on my taijutsu because I suck at genjutsu and there's nothing that can help me with that."

He nudged Shimizu, and the quieter boy raised an eyebrow at him before saying: "Also from Lightning, although I never actually trained in Kumogakure, I'm Shimizu Daichi. My uncle, who was from Uzushio and trained me and my cousin, ranked me as a genin a year and a half ago, and says I should make chuunin in another half a year, but that was back when we didn't focus completely on shinobi skills. He says that my taijutsu is my strongest point, and ninjutsu is my weakest point."

Still scowling at Uchiha, Sakura gritted out: "Shiroyami Sakura. Konohagakure. Eight months ago. I took place in the most recent chuunin exams and made it to the preliminary elimination round for the third exam where I was knocked out in a draw. My taijutsu is my weakest area, and my chakra control is my best."

Uchiha studied them for a long moment before saying: "I am Uchiha Itachi, formerly of Konoha. I became a missing-nin because I participated in the slaughter of my entire clan. As a S-rank missing-nin, I joined the Akatsuki until it was disbanded and Uzushio accepted me. My skills are roughly the same across all areas, although like many of my clan I specialize in Katon jutsu and shuriken. In order to get an assessment of your skills, I would like all three of you to come at me with the intent to do serious harm. Please refrain from intentional maiming, although I suspect it will be difficult for you to inflict it upon me. You may work individually or in unison, but I would like to see a demonstration of your skills in all three areas."

Standing, the man placed himself in the middle of the clearing before beckoning them forward. "You may begin at any time."

Reaching into her kunai pouch, Sakura flung a handful of shuriken at him, knowing that they wouldn't ever connect, but feeling that an opening salvo was in order. Unlike Kakashi-sensei's bell test, this was not a test of teamwork. It was a test of her individual skills; the teamwork would come later.

Wishing she knew the jutsu Kakashi-sensei had used to put Sasuke underground, she formed two clones and rushed towards the Uchiha, who had neatly deflected all of her shuriken with a kunai, not even moving a step. Ikeda rushed past her, weaving in and out of her clones as he scattered kunai around the center of the clearing where Uchiha stood. "Shiroyami, Shimizu, _down_!" he called, and Sakura hit the ground as ordered, watching as her clones weren't so lucky and were dispersed by the arcs of lightning that now connected the kunai, creating a dome shaped barrier that contained...her.

Likely in the split second Sakura had used to hit the deck, Uchiha had shunshined out of the way and was now engaged in what appeared to be a short taijutsu spar with Shimizu. As Ikeda dropped the lightning barriers, he grinned sheepishly at Sakura before bounding over to try and help Shimizu.

Sakura stayed back, knowing that her, admittedly better than it could have been, taijutsu was no match for Uchiha and she would just get in the way of the other two boys. If he was really intent on assessing all of their skills, he would seek her out.

Sure enough, he made quick work out of the boys in a few economical moves, sending them hurtling head over heels into each other before appearing in front of her.

He had said they were allowed to come at him with the intent to kill, so she did. Summoning up the memory of what it was like to fight Orochimaru, to fight Gaara, the do-or-die of encountering Zabuza, she threw herself into the spar. This time though, her taijutsu was steady, improved thanks to Tenten's persistence and Gai's patience, and she felt as if she had to make him work a bit harder than she had ever made Kakashi-sensei.

The thought sustained her even as he neatly sent her flying, allowing her to tuck herself into a roll and land in a crouch, kunai in her hand the way Tenten had drilled her through countless episodes of falling out of trees and off walls. Her new teammates were similarly guarded, scattered across the training ground, and the Uchiha was standing in the center, looking none the worse for wear.

"Come to the center," he called, dropping into a cross-legged seat on the packed earth. "Let's talk for a bit."

Warily, Sakura approached, only tucking her kunai away when there seemed to be no chance of him reneging on his promise to talk. Still, she sat furthest away from him, compared to the boys, who had no problem taking their appointed place in front of their sensei.

"Each day will be split between training and assisting with the rebuilding," Uchiha began seemingly unconcerned by her obvious distrust. "We meet here at sunrise, train for a period, then join the others for breakfast. After that, we will either train or assist with the rebuilding until lunch. Whatever the morning didn't hold will be done in the afternoon. Your evenings are your own, but I intend to discuss opportunities for personal training exercises with each of you individually. It's up to you whether or not you do them, and when you do them. The rest of the morning I will continue assessing you, and in the afternoon we will meet individually to discuss your training. I would like Shimizu and Ikeda to spar now; five minutes, taijutsu only. Shiroyami, please take a seat out of the way."

As promised, they spent the rest of the morning being put through their paces. They were pitted against each other, in pairs, and then in a three-way fight. One at a time, Uchiha requested that they perform the three jutsus required for the Konohagakure Academy graduation exam, demonstrate their skills at tree climbing and water walking, and finally demonstrating the highest ranked ninjutsu they were capable of. By the time they finished, the sun was high overhead, and Uchiha dismissed them for lunch.

Naruto was grumbling as he brought his food over to where Sakura and Tenten were sitting, discussing their respective mornings. "I can't believe that Shiroyami-taichou stuck me with the fish guy! He's even worse than Kakashi-sensei."

"How so?" Sakura asked, eyes narrowed as she watched Hoshigaki and Uchiha leave with their food, likely heading to the room that had been turned into the jounin lounge. "Did he try to hurt you?"

"Naw," Naruto answered, though his jumpsuit looked fairly worse off than it had when she saw him in the morning. "He had us spar against him, and made us spar against each other. Then we had to show him all of our jutsus and how well we could throw kunai and shuriken. It was like being back in the Academy again, but without Iruka-sensei yelling at you."

"Sounds like what Kyo had Juugo and I doing," Tenten shrugged. "We're from all over, and from different years. It only makes sense that they need to evaluate us before we can move on. Who did you end up with, Sakura?"

The blond snickered as a vein throbbed in the girl's forehead. "She's with the Uchiha-bastard," he proclaimed cheerfully as Karin entered. "I'm not sure whether or not it's worse than putting me with fish face."

Tenten winced sympathetically. "Maybe you'll get promoted quickly?" she offered, although it was clear that she didn't really believe it herself. "I mean, you made it to the preliminaries and was knocked out in a draw."

"Fat chance," Sakura muttered, stabbing at her food with her chopsticks, wishing that it was the Uchiha. "Remember where my taijutsu was at then?"

"Point taken," the brunette said with a grimace as Karin wandered over, sufficiently distracting Naruto from proclaiming that she wasn't as bad as all three of them knew that she had been.

As Shimizu and Ikeda got up, Sakura sighed and bid goodbye to her friends. Without a word, she fell in alongside her teammates as they retraced their steps on their way back to the training ground that Uchiha had used earlier, their designated meeting place for the rest of the day's activities.

"So, Shiroyami-san," Ikeda began cheerfully as he bounced on his heels. "You're from Konohagakure, eh?"

"I was born there," she replied, taking a seat on the worn stone bench. "My grandmother was out of Uzushio on a mission to Konoha when the citadel fell. She decided to stay there."

"Did your parents come?"

"They...stayed behind," she murmured, not wanting to dwell too much on how she had abandoned them with barely a second thought. "Neither of them really felt drawn to Uzushio."

"You were in the chuunin exams Orochimaru crashed," Shimizu commented quietly from where he was leaning against the rocky wall that surrounded the training ground. "Did you know?"

Sakura shivered as she remembered paralyzing killing intent, remembered knowing that she was going to die because she wasn't strong enough to protect her teammates, remembered crushing sand around her ribs. Unconsciously, she reached up to touch the shorn ends of her hair, only just reaching below her shoulders now. "My team and I met him. During the second part of the exam."

Ikeda looked at her with wide eyes. "You must have been pretty amazing to have survived."

"He didn't care about killing us," she murmured, hands clenching into fists. "There was something he wanted and he needed one of my teammates to get it." She still didn't quite trust the snake sannin, but the difference between the man that she knew now and the monster she had faced in the forest was as distinct as the difference between Uzushio and Konoha.

The boys made various sounds of comprehension, and then Uchiha entered the clearing and all eyes snapped to him.

"Ikeda, join me in the center," he ordered, and the boy snapped to attention before bouncing over. Sourly, Sakura wondered what it was like to not bear a personal grudge against an S-rank missing-nin, but she set it aside in favor of running through her katas while she waited. Tenten had been nagging at her to do them at least once per day in order to keep the muscle memory fresh.

Shimizu watched quietly as she worked through the set. As she took a brief break, just long enough to stretch out her muscles, he asked: "Is that a common Konoha kata, or something your family taught you?"

"Konoha, I guess," she replied after a long minute of thinking about it. "I had a friend who studied under a taijutsu master, and she managed to get me some private tutoring. I'm not completely sure if all of what he taught me was Konoha or something he had developed himself."

"My uncle taught me Uzushio's style," Shimizu offered, coming to stand in front of her. "I could teach the basics to you, in exchange for lessons in the Konoha style."

"Not sure how much I'll be able to teach you," Sakura said wryly as she positioned herself for the beginning of the set. "But here's how it starts…"

They made it slowly through the kata by the time Ikeda finished his private conference with Uchiha, and he waved cheerfully before darting down the path that lead to the citadel proper. Shimizu was called next, leaving Sakura to continue her katas alone, the movements filling her thoughts as she attempted to ignore the murmured conversation happening in the clearing. She assumed that was why Ikeda didn't stay; while they were a team, personal skills and failings were rather...well, _personal_.

When it was her turn to speak with Uchiha, she stalked to the middle of the clearing and dropped down with a glare, careful not to meet his eyes directly. She had heard the rumors going around after he had been in Konoha last, and had no wish to end up like Kakashi-sensei had.

"Shiroyami Sakura, formerly of Konoha," Uchiha began quietly, his voice betraying no emotion. "I assume you know who I am, given the way you have reacted to my presence here?"

"Sasuke-kun was my genin teammate," she gritted out, fighting the urge to reach for a kunai. "It might have been something that came up, even though he never said your name. And you tried to kidnap Naruto. Not to mention that you put Kakashi-sensei in the hospital until they got Tsunade to come back and break the jutsu."

He merely raised an eyebrow. "The third member of Team 7? I had thought you were...ah, you've changed your name since leaving Konoha."

"Haruno is a Konohagakure family," she muttered. "Shiroyami Nanami is my maternal grandmother."

"She warned me you would not take this assignment well," Uchiha murmured. "I had wondered, at first, but I believe I understand. Now, from what I saw today…"

"Forget it," she hissed, shooting to her feet, unwilling to sit and listen to him pretend to be her sensei. "I've already had one sensei who wasn't a _murderer_ ignore me. I'm not going to listen to your little pretense of trying to make me a good kunoichi. Just leave me alone and you won't have any trouble from me."

Spinning on her heel, she attempted to stalk away, but he was in front of her before she got more than two paces. "At the very least," he said flatly, "Konan and several of the other jounin level kunoichi are holding lectures after dinner. It is recommended that all kunoichi attend."

Sakura sidestepped him and left the training ground.

Back in the room she shared with Karin and Tenten, she let herself slump to the ground in boneless relief. She had just blatantly defied her jounin instructor. Her jounin instructor who happened to be a S-ranked missing-nin known for murdering his entire clan.

She was probably lucky to be alive.

Still, while she stood by her decision to refuse any training he suggested, it did leave her in a bit of a quandary. During the team training sessions, she would have to obey his orders, but he had said himself that her personal training was her own responsibility.

 _Stamina_ , she thought vaguely, resting her head against the wall as she thought about how she could move forward. Stamina would help. She was much better than she had been, able to keep up with Tenten and Naruto, one used to training with an insatiable powerhouse and the other an insatiable powerhouse himself, at least during normal activities. Increasing her physical stamina and chakra capacity would leave her well prepared for most things.

Tenten would probably love to train weapons skills with her. The brunette was always looking for people to play targets, especially when the people moved and made it more difficult. Something like that would help her speed as well.

Ninjutsu was something better left for a competent instructor or plenty of reading material, so she was better off focusing on the basics for the moment. She had seen how much damage Naruto could do with his shadow clones, and while the standard academy clone wasn't anything close to a shadow clone, she could make it work until she had the reserves to pull off shadow clones.

Taijutsu...without Gai-sensei, she could only depend on her friends. And her teammates, she added, trying to readjust herself to thinking in terms of three people when she thought about her day, instead of the collection of friends she had brought with her or made here in Uzushio. It was something she could do during the team sessions.

Genjutsu was something that was discussed in theory, but never in practice. Specialists seemed to pop up out of nowhere, but only rarely. Without texts, Sakura was probably stuck with the bare minimum the academy had taught, which wasn't enough to actually use.

 _Oh well_ , she thought, getting to her feet. _Speed, stamina, and chakra control_.

First things first, she needed to find a new running track.

* * *

Nothing much really changed, except the inclusion of shinobi training to her day. She ran in the predawn light before she was supposed to meet her team at what had become _their_ training ground, and then she joined Shimizu and Ikeda for two hours of what Uchiha referred to as _conditioning_. Sprints, abdominal exercises, pushups...anything he could think of that could conceivably build muscle and stamina. Sakura didn't mind this as much as she would have had Kakashi-sensei imposed it on them. Now she knew the dangers of being unprepared, and she pushed herself as hard as she could, trying to build up her skills so that the next time her team was in a life or death situation, she wouldn't need Lee and Team 10 to save her.

After a break for breakfast, they either trained more or were assigned to a rebuilding project. While the jounin were working on several buildings in the fourth circle, the genin teams and chuunin were spread out in the third circle, working on housing or the new research building that they had planned. Sakura caught occasional glimpses of Orochimaru and Kabuto on days they were assigned to the research building, the two having been assigned to the hospital due to their skills with medicine, along with a team of civilian nurses and nurses in training.

If they had been assigned to the rebuilding in the morning, they met in their training ground after the lunch break, where Uchiha led them through spars and training exercises. They rotated between taijutsu, ninjutsu, and weapons skills, with him patiently walking through the exercises from the very beginning, as if they were back in the Academy again.

" _A solid foundation is more impressive than a flashy jutsu,"_ Uchiha would lecture when one of the boys asked why they weren't being allowed to move forward until the current exercise was mastered to his satisfaction. " _All of you come from different backgrounds, and as such, have different grasp of the material. A team is only as strong as its weakest link, but with a firm foundation everything will come easier. Could you do a ninjutsu without mastering control over your chakra? Of course, everything can be forced. But you will waste more energy than you may be able to afford in a life or death situation."_

For the first time since entering the Academy, Sakura didn't feel like the weakest link he referred to was a subtle prod at her. If it had been Kakashi-sensei who had said it, with Naruto and Sasuke on her team, she would have been insulted, would have fumed and fussed all the way home after training, but now she didn't bother to get outraged. She had better chakra control than either Ikeda or Shimizu. While they may beat her in taijutsu or other physical challenges, she had learned to be scrappy through long practices with Tenten, how to dodge just enough that she missed one projectile without ending up in the path of another. She didn't fall behind during their conditioning practices, but kept up, no matter how red faced, sweaty, and out of breath she got. There was no way that she was critical to their success, but their failure would not rest solely on her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six:**

As kunoichi class let out for the night, Sakura fell into step with Tenten and Karin. "I was out early this morning and heard some of the jounin talking about how they might start sending genin teams out in the spring," she murmured under the chatter of the other kunoichi leaving the large conference room on the second floor of the administrative building where their class was held.

Well, it would probably be a conference room once they had actual furniture. Storage seals could hold a great deal, but whoever stocked the vaults had planned for food and weapons over furniture and other luxuries.

"So they think we're about ready?" Tenten asked as Karin nudged them out of the main flow of traffic and into a secluded, shadowed space between the administrative building and what would be the future civilian council building. "Did they say what we'd be doing?"

"Something about the outer islands," Sakura supplied, covering a yawn with her hand. "I think Shiroyami-taichou mentioned that they used to have outposts there, back before the fall. We'll probably be investigating and rebuilding those, since the bulk of the citadel will be cleared by then."

They had been hard at work, despite the winter storms that came up suddenly and blasted them with cold air, wind, and rain. Circle by circle, they had cleared and sorted the rubble so that as it was needed, they could use it to rebuild, or to build anew. The hospital was functioning, at least in a limited sense. A secondary vault had been found underneath it, filled with sealed medical supplies that had kept their potency, even if they were several decades out of date. Kabuto was in charge, mostly by dint of being the only one with significant medical training, while Orochimaru was nominally named head of research and development, despite there being little actual research being done, and many, many restrictions on him, the seals binding his chakra being the largest.

All of the former missing-nin had the seals, although to varying extents. Sakura knew that the ones placed on the members of Akatsuki were constantly being reworked. Kakazu and Hidan had been working the bounty circuit, which was probably the only thing standing between them and starvation that winter. Without paying missions, they were dependent on what they had brought with them, and what had been stored in the vaults. This civilian residents of the island did what they could, in exchange for a few days labor from one of the genin teams, but they were still forced to ration every last crumb. Naruto had complained about the lack of ramen at first, but once he got stuck on kitchen duty, the complaints dribbled to an end.

Kabuto's had been lifted, with the strict warning that he was only to use his chakra for medical purposes, and so far Sakura hadn't heard any reports of him relapsing. Deidara, Hoshigaki and Uchiha had only partial seals, given their status as genin instructors, but Sakura had a feeling that as soon as they were ordered on an off island mission, the seals would be fully lifted.

"Did you hear anything about when they're opening the academy?" Karin asked, adjusting her glasses in their prearranged signal for somebody coming within hearing range. "They're almost done with the apartments, aren't they?"

"Probably not until they get the generators and pumps running," Tenten theorized, taking up the thread of conversation without a single pause. "I mean, most days I could kill for a hot shower."

"Uzumaki, Mori, Shiroyami." The dark figure of Uchiha Itachi loomed out of the gloom, face blank as he looked down at them. "A little late to be out?"

"We just wanted a bit of fresh air," Sakura snapped with a shrug. "Is that against the rules?"

"Genin teams will be assigned to start work on reestablishing running water and electricity to certain buildings," the Uchiha said mildly. "It will be a long day for the teams chosen."

"We were planning on heading in soon," Tenten murmured, elbowing Sakura harshly in the ribs as she opened her mouth to answer. "Thank you for the information though."

"Hn."

As he disappeared back into the darkness, Karin murmured: "I don't know how you haven't been punished for talking to him like that."

"He knows he deserves no respect from me," Sakura muttered irritably, fingering one of her kunai. "Hence why I remain unpunished. I'm keeping up with Shimizu and Ikeda, so he can't complain."

"And on the flip side," Tenten interjected dryly as they headed towards the Academy and their waiting bedrolls. "Naruto and Hoshigaki butt heads every hour they're awake. Although, I'd like to note that Naruto is getting much faster, and it looks like his chakra control is better, given the number of laps he's been sentenced to do on top of the wall."

"Have you two thought about your specializations?" Sakura asked, changing the subject as they entered the Academy, following the dimly lit seals on the wall to their shared room. "After what Honoka-sensei said last week?"

Kunoichi classes were a mixed bag of actual female related skills, like those taught in Konoha, and skills the senseis had found useful over the years. While that night's class had been focused on sealing, since Shiroyami was teaching, along with several other older kunoichi from Uzushio before the fall, the previous week had been on shinobi specializations.

"I'm all set for sensing, and recon and tracking," Karin said glumly. "But I'm not sure if that's all I want to do? I _know_ I don't want to heal, but other than sensing, I'm not particularly good at any one thing. Even if I do apparently share the Uzumaki gift for sealing."

"At least they haven't started teaching Naruto and Suigetsu sealing," Tenten said with a commiserating pat on the redhead's shoulder. "I think they should find a nice deserted island for that. Kyo's been having me work on the Uzushio kenjutsu style, and it's coming along nicely according to him. I might specialize in that, with weapons in general as a backup. But we don't really need specializations do we? Not until we reach tokubetsu."

"It helps to start early," Sakura pointed out as she reached their doorway and stepped inside, finding her way to her own bedroll with practiced ease, even in the near dark. "The longer you have to train, the easier it will be to make tokubetsu when you're ready."

"You have the chakra control to be a medic-nin," Karin murmured sleepily as she burrowed into her blankets. "And it would probably get you away from the Uchiha for at least a little bit."

* * *

Because Karin had a good point, and she didn't have any other ideas, Sakura took her breakfast and went to seek out Kabuto.

She found him in the hospital, as she had expected, but surprisingly enough he was eating with Konan-sensei and Nagato, who Sakura had never really been introduced to, despite his status as an Uzumaki and probable cousin to Naruto and Karin.

Scruffing her feet awkwardly, she waited for Kabuto to look up from their quiet conversation. "Shiroyami-san? Are you in need of medical attention?"

"I wanted to ask you a few questions about being a medic-nin," she murmured shyly, her initial courage fading in the face of actually asking. "My chakra control's pretty good, so I thought I might be a good candidate…"

Kabuto motioned for her to take a seat next to them. "Konan-san, Uzumaki-san, do you mind me inviting Shiroyami-san to join us?"

Both murmured their agreement, and Sakura tentatively took a seat next to Kabuto, setting her bowl down in front of her.

"So, how good is your chakra control?" Kabuto asked, just as she had lifted some rice into her mouth. Chewing quickly, she swallowed and replied: "I learned how to tree walk in a single try. And taught myself the basics of water walking with only a little help from Mori-san."

"Impressive," Kabuto raised an eyebrow. "How much are you willing to work at it?"

"I don't want to stop being a missions shinobi," Sakura said bluntly. It was why she hadn't gone straight to Kabuto when she learned the correlation between chakra control and medic-nin potential. "I don't mind working in the hospital when I'm in the citadel, but I don't want to be confined to it." She had been the weakest link on Team 7 and worked hard to pull herself out of that position. Resigning her spot on the missions roster would feel like defeat.

"They may try to keep you in the citadel," Konan warned gently. "Medic-nin are a rare commodity these days."

"So are combat ready medics," Sakura countered calmly, having rehearsed her arguments with herself all night. "Tsunade of the Sannin was equally skilled with combat and medicine,and her advocacy for sending squads equipped with a medic-nin saved a number of lives during the Third War. Training me as a medic-nin would allow me to support squads in the field."

"Say I take you on as an apprentice," Kabuto said, expression blank. "Where would you find time to fit training in, while still keeping up with your combat skills?"

"With the permission of my sensei, I would alternate between missing the physical training sessions and the mission sections. In addition, the evenings without kunoichi class would be used to pursue my medical studies."

"Shiroyami-sama and the council would probably grant permission," Konan said, glancing at Kabuto. "They were discussing the shortage of trained shinobi medics the other day."

"I'll talk to her this morning," Kabuto sighed before fixing Sakura with a stern stare. "You had best be prepared to work hard."

"Thank you Kabuto-sensei," Sakura murmured, gathering her empty bowl and rising. "I hope I will see you soon."

When he approached her at lunch, she was positively gleeful. As she stumbled back to her bedroll that night, after working through the afternoon, pausing to gulp the dinner Kabuto brought back for her, and then working through the evening period, she was at the brink of chakra exhaustion and dreading rising before dawn to do her own conditioning before meeting up with her team. But she had managed to manifest the chakra scalpel that Kabuto had her working on, even if it was only for a brief moment.

* * *

"You're probably a genjutsu type," Kabuto said out of the blue one day while they were doing rounds in the room that had been designated as their clinic- open to anyone who needed non-emergency medical treatment. She was proficient enough at non-chakra based treatments to do most of the work, and her chakra-based diagnostic jutsus were accurate 99.9% of the time.

Kabuto still teased her over the 0.1%.

"Excuse me?" she murmured, careful not to startle the toddler whose scrape she was disinfecting.

"A genjutsu type," her sensei repeated, carefully healing a broken bone sustained from a stupid bet one of the chuunin had gotten into. "You probably aced every bit of bookwork that they put in front of you, your chakra control is beyond even mine, and you have a fairly strategic mindset, though not at a Nara level."

"And what does that have to do with anything?"

"It's what you're best suited for," Kabuto explained, a hint of impatience creeping into his normally patient voice as he shooed the now healed chuunin away. "If you were a ninjutsu type, you'd have deep reserves, and elemental techniques would come easy. Taijutsu types find it easier to learn through movement, and don't have to put as much effort into learning forms. Genjutsu types are the rarest: they think before they act, and they're able to master genjutsu to a level almost comparable with the Uchiha."

"Are the Uchiha genjutsu types then?" Sakura grumbled, patting the toddler on his head before moving on to her next patient. "Since their doujutsu basically gives them a pass?"

" _Your_ Uchiha was probably a taijutsu type," the silver haired medic responded, with the slight smirk to his face that led her to believe he was attempting to rile her up. "But your sensei's a genjutsu type, most likely. Orochimaru-sama is a genjutsu type as well. Funny how the smartest kids on the class are the ones to go astray, eh?"

Sakura focused on her patient, not wanting to think about something intrinsic to her that linked her with Uchiha Itachi and Orochimaru. As much as the older Uchiha hadn't even attempted to _punish_ her for her blatant challenges to his authority, she still saw Sasuke's unconscious form, lying in the hospital bed, when she looked at him. And in her mind, the funeral of the Sandaime Hokage played out when she thought of the snake sannin, the killing intent she had felt in the Forest making her shiver even in the broad daylight. He had been nothing but professional, in their few encounters, and he had said that he was sworn to protect Naruto, but Sakura still felt on edge.

"Did I ever tell you about Kimimaro?" Kabuto asked later as Sakura studied one of the medical textbooks that she suspected was from her sensei's personal collection.

"No," she murmured, wondering where this was going. Kabuto wasn't one for stories, more about lecturing on the subjects she needed to learn.

"He was the last of the Kaguya clan," he continued, and she looked up from the book, knowing that she wouldn't be able to read while he spoke. Not if she wanted to retain the information. "They claimed to be descended from a moon goddess, but what was fascinating about them was their ability to eject their own bones to be used as weapons."

"Hang on," she interrupted. "Naruto said he met a guy like that. Right before he caught up to Sasuke."

"Kimimaro was the leader of the Sound Five," Kabuto agreed, looking out the window into the emptiness of the second circle, even though the citadel was slowly being rebuilt according to the plans the council was drawing up. "But he was stricken with an illness. It settled in his lungs. Orochimaru-sama and I worked to drive it off, to cure it, but we were not able to. When he heard that his fellows had likely been delayed in bringing Orochimaru's new vessel, he left his sickbed to retrieve them."

"So, he knew that he would die, considering that if his teammates were delayed, they had probably met opposition, and he went out there anyway?" Sakura was curious in spite of her deep dislike of anything related to Oto and Sasuke's defection. "That's...it sounds like it was suicide."

"He loved Orochimaru-sama," Kabuto murmured with a shrug. "Loved him like a child loves their parents. Kimimaro was devastated when he fell ill and was an unsuitable body for Orochimaru-sama. After that...once he realized that it would take a miracle, all he wanted was to do what he could to make Orochimaru-sama's goals succeed."

"Did he…" Sakura couldn't make the words come past her lips, but her sensei seemed to pick up on the thread of her question.

"Did he die?" Kabuto shrugged elegantly. "None of them came back. I think it's safe to assume they died, either at the hands of the Konoha team sent to retrieve the Uchiha, or under interrogation."

There was nothing more to be said after that.

* * *

Sakura hesitated for a moment before knocking lightly on the doorframe.

Without doors, it was now common for any person approaching a room to knock, pause, and then step into view, while staying outside until allowed to enter. So she knocked, waited a long moment, and then stepped into the doorway.

Orochimaru was standing with his back to her, long hair tied up in a bun, his simple kimono shirt's low collar barely obscuring the thick band of seals inked around his neck. She studied them for a moment, wishing that she knew more sealing, enough to understand what they did to him.

"They restrict my chakra," he murmured, half turning from the window to glance at her. "The Sandaime Hokage may have sealed my ability to use ninjutsu, but access to chakra makes anyone infinitely more dangerous. In addition, they bind me to wander only within the citadel walls. The seals will stop my breathing if I pass beyond the river."

He sighed before turning back to the window. "Why are you here, Shiroyami-san?"

"I want to learn from you," she murmured, bowing slightly. "Kabuto believes me to be a genjutsu type…"

"Uchiha Itachi is both a genjutsu type, and your genin sensei," the sannin replied, not moving away from the window. "Why bother coming to me?"

"I don't want to learn the tricks that a man who has always had access to a doujutsu specialized for genjutsu deigns to teach me," Sakura said scornfully as she straightened. "And I do not wish to associate with him for any longer than I must."

"What is it, besides his doujutsu, that you object to?" Orochimaru murmured, turning to face her. "Is it that he murdered children? His entire clan? Tormented his younger brother with the cruellest genjutsu known to shinobi at this time? Remember, I have killed children. My own sensei. I allied with another nation to attack the village that raised me. What is the difference you see between myself and Uchiha Itachi?"

"Jirobo." Sakura watched his eyes widen slightly at the name. "Sakon and Ukon. Tayuya. Kidomaru." She paused for a moment before saying: "Kimimaro."

"Pawns," Orochimaru said dismissively, but she didn't quite believe him. "Tools. Means to an end."

"My genin team met Momochi Zabuza."

"And what does that have to do with anything?"

"He had a student. A boy; a survivor of the bloodline purges in Kiri. According to Naruto, Zabuza considered the boy a tool, right up until the moment he took a _chidori_ to the chest to save Zabuza."

The sannin looked at her oddly. "I had heard that the Demon of the Mist had been killed."

"Kakashi-sensei had disabled his arms," Sakura whispered, lost in the memories that she knew would stay with her forever. "But he took a kunai in his mouth, and ripped apart as many thugs as he could, even killing Gato before they took him down. All because Gato had stepped on the boy's body. Zabuza...his last request was to be placed next to Haku."

"Touching," Orochimaru sneered. "Sentimental."

"Kabuto _told_ me about the Sound Five," Sakura continued, pushing past the shiver of fear she felt upon seeing the sneer on his face, much like the one on his face during their encounter in the Forest of Death. "Not just their stats. Who they were. How they grew up with nothing until you found them and trained them, and made them _something_. Each and every one of those kids died for you, and that type of loyalty is hard to inspire by cruelty."

" _Fear_ ," Orochimaru hissed, sounding like his summons, but Sakura straightened her spine and faced him down. " _Ambition_. They are masters that inspire faultless loyalty in those in the positions of the children you mentioned."

"I know about Mitarashi," Sakura blurted out. "I know that she was your student and you left her behind after placing your curse mark on her. You could have taken her as a vessel, but you didn't. Please. Just teach me genjutsu. That's all I want to learn."

"Anyone can learn the genjutsus that get written down," the sannin said dismissively. "But are you prepared to create your own?"

Sakura stood still as she watched him pace towards her, his eyes flashing with some emotion that she didn't dare read too deeply into. "The root of genjutsu is an understanding of _humanity_. Even an S-ranked missing-nin can be laid low by a well prepared genjutsu. Are you prepared to shape man's worst nightmares, to make them so realistic that nobody can tell the difference between your illusions and the reality?"

Mute, she could only nod as he paced around her.

"Very well," she heard, and then she was plunged into the Forest of Death again, his killing intent sweeping over her like a wave as she stared at the three Oto nin declaring that they had come for Sasuke. "Why don't you experience what you will have to create?"

 _It's just a genjutsu_ , Sakura thought desperately, even as she gripped the kunai that she found in her fist. _You can break it._

Suppressing her chakra she tried to disrupt the illusion, remove the foreign chakra from her system. She thought that she would be able to sense it, and after a detailed scan of her system she found it, but as the illusion shattered around her she found herself in Wave again, on the bridge as Naruto's chakra, the _Kyuubi's_ chakra she knew now, erupted around her as somewhere within Haku's dome of ice mirrors Sasuke was falling to the ground, senbon littering his body.

Bile rose up in her throat as Sakura listened to the agonizing sounds Naruto was making, even though she knew that Naruto had never lost control of the Kyuubi, that any minute now Haku would be jumping in front of the chidori...it was harder to dislodge the genjutsu this time, but she broke through, and now she was in an underground lab, someplace she had never been…

By the time she had broken through all seven layers of the genjutsu that Orochimaru had laid on her, she was drenched in sweat and shaking with being so close to chakra exhaustion. As she rummaged in her weapons pouch for one of the emergency rations bars, she glanced up at the snake sannin, who had returned to his previous place by the window while she fought to dispell the genjutsu.

He was watching her with an unreadable look on his face.

"Did I pass?" she asked, finding her voice raspier than expected as she broke off a piece of the rations bar, just enough to bring her off the brink of collapse.

"I think…we will do adequately together, Shiroyami-san."

Tiredly, she grinned, before asking: "What time should I come tomorrow?"

"Report after the evening meal starting tonight," Orochimaru ordered, turning back to the window. "I will make Kabuto aware of the change in your schedule."

"Tonight then," she agreed, and bowed lowly. "Thank you shishou."

"Do not thank me yet. It will be much work for you, between your studies with Kabuto and your regular training."

"I'll make it work," Sakura swore, knowing that it would be more exhausting than even her current schedule, but knowing it was worth it. "No matter what."

"Be careful what you commit yourself to."

 *****Lots going on here, mostly setup. Sorry if it's a bit boring, and sorry for forgetting that I was going to be out of town and unable to post last weekend. More action in the next chapter.*****


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven:**

"We have a mission," Uchiha murmured as they assembled outside the administrative building after breakfast. "Go pack."

"How long?" Ikeda asked, bouncing slightly in place.

"Three weeks, give or take," Uchiha replied, and all three of them stopped what they were doing and _stared_. They had been allowed off the island, but only to the two more northern islands as they rebuilt the outposts that were now manned by a pair of chuunin and a jounin. Those were three day trips at most, never a week. Week-long trips meant _mainland_ missions, something only A- or S-ranked shinobi were currently being given.

"We're taking over the outposts," Uchiha explained, deflating their hopes. "The council decided that since we're fairly limited in manpower at the moment, genin teams whose sensei's feel are prepared enough could be put into the rotation."

Sakura levelled a flat look at him. She had been doing so well in only spending the bare minimum of time with her team, more specifically her sensei, but now he would have three weeks of her attention without Kabuto and Orochimaru to occupy her time with medic training and genjutsu lessons.

"Pack," he ordered, snapping the boys out of their stupor. "We're to reach the outpost by evening, so we need to get going as quickly as possible."

Saluting, they dashed away, but Sakura fled for the research building where she knew Orochimaru would be puzzling over how to restore functionality to the former Akatsuki leader's mangled legs. Or he'd be attempting to figure out how to restore his ninjutsu capabilities. She wasn't sure if he knew that she had noticed his notes on that project sitting out, but those were the two things occupying his days, since there was no equipment to tinker with and his ability to cast more than genjutsus and basic chakra exercises was nonexistent.

Landing lightly on his windowsill after a quick dash up the wall, she waited for his murmur of "Come in," before slipping inside. He was seated on his bedroll, still unrolled and not tucked away like it usually was when she visited for lessons, scrolls around him with various half-formed ideas sketched out. Given by the sketch of what seemed to be prosthetic legs, he was probably working on the Uzumaki's mobility issue.

"Shiroyami," he said, setting his teacup down in a clear space on the floor. "What brings you here?"

"We're being sent out on a mission, shishou," she answered. "We'll be stationed at one of the outposts for the next three weeks." It still felt weird referring to Orochimaru as her master, but she suspected that if she gave him any less than the proper respect, he would turn her away and she would be stuck learning on her own again.

The snake sannin sighed, before opening his pack and rummaging through it for a scroll. "Contained in this scroll are several genjutsu scrolls. I expect you to have read and practiced them by the time you return." She had since learned that the genjutsu he had cast on her the day she had begged him to take her as a student was the only one he was capable of using, since it didn't require hand seals, so most of her lessons involved her learning through trial and error based on Orochimaru's descriptions. Sakura had suspected that he had genjutsu scrolls in his possession, but likely out of his own petty frustrations over the Sandaime's sealing of not just his ninjutsu like she had originally assumed, but his ability to use hand signs, which eliminated his ability to use ninjutsu, the majority of genjutsus, and anything but basic chakra elimination.

"Hai shishou," Sakura murmured, before departing out the window, the scroll in her hand. Kabuto told her to keep practicing the medical jutsus that he was teaching her, and handed her a thick anatomy book to read in her spare time. With both assignments in hand, she had just enough time to dart back to the room she shared with Karin and Tenten to grab her pack before meeting up with her team.

Despite her haste, she was still the last to arrive, but the Uchiha didn't comment. Instead, he led them to the gates, handing a scroll to the chuunin guard on duty. While it was being inspected, Uchiha turned to Sakura and her teammates. "We'll run up the river. Don't fall in."

Even with the added difficulty of running on top of the water, instead of on the banks beside it, they made it to the northernmost point on the island, home to a medium-sized fishing village that was their best way of getting to either of the other two outer islands. Waiting for an hour until someone could take them across, Sakura used the opportunity to look over the reading Kabuto wanted her to complete. Most of it seemed like review, she realized as she breathed a sigh of relief.

Ikeda wandered over and dropped down next to her on the stone wall that surrounded the shallow harbor. "So, do you like medicine?"

Startled, Sakura looked up, finding only honest curiosity in his face. "It's not bad," she admitted as she closed the book and stowed it back in her pack. "I have the chakra control for it, and being able to help people is the best part. But I don't want to be confined to the hospital, so I'm trying to tailor my skills more towards field medicine."

"Assassins and medics are cut from the same cloth," Ikeda mused. "At least, that's what someone in Kumo said to one of my teammates there. Something about the composure needed to save a human life being equal to the composure needed to deliberately take a human life."

"It's a heady thing," she agreed, thinking of the fish that had become supper during her early efforts to produce medical chakra. "One wrong move, and you can do a lot more harm than good. Thankfully though, we're not doing many surgeries. Right now it's cuts and bruises, and the occasional broken bone."

"How well can you heal?" he asked curiously. "I mean, if we run into trouble, what can you fix and what do we need to have a qualified medic fix?"

"Lacerations, clean breaks, and routine bumps and bruises. Anything more than that, and I can attempt civilian first aid to stabilize you until we can get you into Kabuto's hands."

"Shiroyami, Ikeda. We're leaving now," Uchiha called from over by the docks, Shimizu already waiting by his side. "Come. We're to reach the outpost by nightfall."

Grinning, Ikeda bounded off, leaving Sakura to follow behind, glaring at the Uchiha's back when he wasn't looking in her direction. This little three week's mission was probably his way of forcing her to come under his thumb instead of seeking out other teachers.

* * *

As he wanted, they reached the outpost by night, to the grateful surprise of the chuunin pair and their overseeing jounin who hadn't expected to be relieved for another week.

The middle island was the smallest, and least populated due to the rocky soil and dearth of flat land for farming. A tiny village had sprung up at each end of the island, no more than a cluster of houses for the few fisherfolk that made their homes there. Uzushio's outpost had been built into the mountain in the center of the island, in a cave shaped by doton jutsus. It was only three rooms: a sleeping room, a common room, and a bathroom, plus the covered upper terrace where the shinobi on watch could observe the sea on either side of the mountain. There was a small aviary in the roof of the terrace, that Sakura knew would eventually be full of messenger birds once the council worked out where to find the birds they needed without alerting the major hidden villages.

Shinobi from the hidden villages hadn't set foot on Uzushio since they had retaken the citadel. From what Sakura had been able to overhear from jounin and council meetings, since she had developed a habit of lurking in the shadows when she had the time to linger, there had been discreet scouting parties out on the mainland, but no strangers on the island. Uzushio had been abandoned for so long, and few enough shinobi remembered her, that it would likely be the last place they ever looked.

The common theory was that Konoha was too busy searching for Orochimaru, Uchiha Sasuke, its jinchuuriki, and Akatsuki, not realizing that three out of the four were together. Kumo was far less likely to notice its shinobi missing, since most of those that had arrived in Uzushio hadn't been Kumo shinobi at all; instead they had been Uzushio families teaching their children to be Uzushio shinobi. Ikeda was one of the few that had actually been trained in Kumo's Academy.

Considering that Konoha, and by extension Uzushio, had been at war with Iwa at the time of the citadel's fall, there had been no shinobi coming from Iwa during the return. The same could be said of Kiri, which was far more concerned these days with fighting among itself than any missing shinobi. According to one of the wandering shinobi, a kunoichi named Terumi Mei had attempted a coup not long before Konoha's chuunin exams and failed. Last intelligence had her somewhere on the mainland, licking her wounds and regrouping. It had relieved Sakura, knowing that the country that had destroyed her home was distracted by infighting instead of potentially lurking and waiting to destroy them again.

And Suna? Well, she was fairly certain that they were busy fixing their own problems without bothering about any other country's missing shinobi.

Karin had postulated that since most of the returned shinobi hadn't joined a shinobi force after the fall, and that the younger generations had taken other names through marriage, there were few paper trails to link the disappearances to Uzushio. Sakura had to agree. Tenten would be difficult to trace to Uzushio, Sakura nearly as difficult, if one didn't know about her grandmother's affiliation as a former Uzushio kunoichi, and any connection Naruto had would be overlooked in the furor of a lost jinchuuriki.

According to the shinobi they were replacing, there had only been a handful of ships that had passed during the last month. All trade ships, based on their size, and none of them looking as if they would stop at any of the islands.

"It's early for pirates," the jounin, an older man who had been on his first jounin mission during the fall. "Another month and the seas will have calmed enough for the merchant ships to come out in full storm, and with them come the pirates." They were gathered around the dining table in the common room, still in good shape thanks to the outposts being completely abandoned but untouched during the long years since the citadel's destruction. Equally undisturbed was the water and power to the cave system, making the assignment to the outpost more desirable that Sakura had previously realized. While running water and electricity was being slowly restored to the citadel, it was slow work, since the channels in the rock that carried water had to be painstakingly shaped by those capable of using doton jutsus, since pipes were in short supply, and then they had to be scrubbed clean by industrious genin teams before water would be allowed through them.

Kabuto had listened to her complain about those missions for all of five minutes before abruptly changing their lesson plans for the day and lecturing on all of the things that could go wrong with a contaminated water supply.

She didn't complain again.

And neither did any of the other genin after the contents of the lecture made the rounds one day during lunch after she had explained in great detail to Naruto when he was whining.

So, even though they had been working on restoring water and electricity to the citadel, it was a slow process, and service was often interrupted.

The river, despite its chill and need for privacy seals, was usually the better option when you were interested in getting clean.

Here, in the outpost, they had appliances (dated, but serviceable), electric lights, and _hot showers_.

Even the prospect of sharing sleeping quarters with Uchiha Itachi couldn't put too much of a damper on Sakura's mood.

When the shinobi left for the citadel the next morning, Uchiha made two clones and set them on watch before sitting the genin down at the table. "We only need to have one person on watch at a time," he said making sure they all met his eyes. "Every four hours we'll rotate. Shiroyami, do you feel comfortable being declared the team medic?"

"Cuts, bruises, and basic broken bones only," she stated flatly. "Anything more than that I'm not cleared to heal on my own."

"When you are not on watch, you are expected to keep up your training. We'll be meeting individually to work out how best to do that and what you expect to achieve by the end of our post here. Does everyone remember how to alert those not on watch if there is an incident?"

As all of them nodded, the Uchiha asked: "Is there anyone who would like to volunteer to take first watch?"

Sakura shot out of her seat. "I'll take first watch," she said, and without waiting for approval headed off towards the ladder to the terrace.

For a moment, she wished she had the foresight to bring one of her scrolls on genjutsu from her pack, but she remembered that she was supposed to keep watch and focused on the horizon.

Long hours passed, and eventually she was relieved by Ikeda. At that point, she was chilly, with sore eyes and numb body parts from being mostly stationary for four hours. She had done some katas around hour two, but other than that she had tried to keep her eyes fairly well fixed on the horizon.

The sea was fascinating for sure, but it was also mind numbingly _boring_ after four hours.

"Try to move around some," she advised Ikeda as she slowly shuffled back to the ladder. "It will hurt less when you're relieved."

"Bring out some lunch when they make it?" he asked, perching on the wall of the terrace. "Ask Uchiha-sensei for the cooking schedule."

"Will do," she promised.

Uchiha was sitting at the kitchen table, a scroll out in front of him. Likely their mission report, since paper and scrolls were rationed just as heavily as food and equipment.

Actually, the only thing not rationed at this point was water.

They had plenty of that.

"Shiroyami," he said, not even bothering to look up from the scroll. "Take a seat, and we'll discuss your training."

"I can keep up with my own conditioning," she said flatly, crossing towards the sleeping chamber where her pack was. "My shishou gave me several scrolls of genjutsu to learn and Kabuto-sensei gave me an anatomy text to study. That should occupy most of my time outside of watch."

"What type of shinobi do you want to be, Shiroyami?" Uchiha asked, looking up for the first time. His face was inscrutable as he watched her.

"Not one like _you_ ," she replied, voice dripping with an imitation of the scorn she had once heard Orochimaru direct at the Sandaime one night when she had arrived early for their lessons. It was a reasonable imitation, she felt.

"Your other sensei is a known traitor and spy. The man you call _shishou_ is not only a traitor, but a murderer, a criminal, and someone who would kill his own mentor." Uchiha murmured, and Sakura thought she heard an undercurrent of tension in it. "Are they better examples for you to emulate?"

"At least they didn't kill their families and torture their brothers," she retorted, stung. Sakura knew that the men she had chosen as her mentors were not men in whose footsteps she ought to follow. They were everything that Uchiha had said, and likely more, but they didn't attempt to hide that.

Yet, she had seen Orochimaru kneeling on the bank in front of the gates, arms useless and appearance in disarray, begging for a chance to be accepted into Uzushio. Someone who had humbled himself so much to return to the citadel that had haunted her dreams for so long...there had to be something in him besides cold blooded murder.

"Shimizu will be making lunch soon," the Uchiha informed her, turning back to his report. "You're off for the next twelve hours. Dinner is your responsibility."

Not bothering with a response, Sakura headed for her pack.

* * *

Being stationed at the outpost was _boring_.

After the excitement of hot showers and reliable electricity, life in the hollowed out mountain settled into a routine of _watch shift_ and _not watch shift_. Since Uchiha would only allow one of them out of the outpost at a time, Sakura was confined to the cave unless training by running up and down the mountain, which was an exercise in chakra control _and_ stamina, since even the path they had taken to reach the outpost necessitated chakra-assistance in certain stretches.

Ikeda broke his arm one night, falling asleep on the terrace wall and falling over the edge. Thankfully, it was a clean break and he had fallen on the inside ledge, but Uchiha had fussed while Sakura healed it and lectured all of them on proper conduct while keeping watch as a clone took over the last of Ikeda's shift.

Shimizu was the one to actually save them from dying of boredom.

"What's this?" Sakura asked as she slid down the ladder, coming in from her shift at the end of the first week. Ikeda and Uchiha were seated on their pillows, hunched over what appeared to be a square inked on the ground in the brightest corner of the outpost.

"It's a game," Ikeda explained, brow furrowed as he looked at the array of stones scattered within the square. "Shimizu came up with it."

"Something other than cards?" she asked incredulously, taking a seat on the opposite edge. "Or shogi?" There had been a battered old set lurking on a shelf in the sleeping room, but Ikeda didn't have the patience for it, and she wasn't about to ask Uchiha to play with her.

"We borrowed a few pieces from the shogi set," Ikeda admitted, moving a few of the rocks that appeared to be tokens. "And the cards and some dice that Shimizu brought. I went out and got a bunch of rocks for troops, and Uchiha-sensei inked the lines in place."

Looking closely at what seemed to be the game "board", Sakura noticed that it had been divided up into quadrants, with shogi pieces in each corner. A pile of cards lay on each corner, along with a pile of tokens in one of the quadrants. Picking one up, she found it blank, unlike those already scattered in the quadrants, which had the kanji for _genin_ , _chuunin_ , _tokubetsu_ , _jounin_ , and _ANBU_ inked on them. "How do you play?"

"The goal is to take over the entire map," Ikeda explained, gesturing to the square. "Everybody starts with a quadrant. Uchiha-sensei and Shimizu laid out terrain, which can alter troop movement. And the cards indicate how many troops you have to start with, although if you come into conflict with another person's troops and win, you can take half of them for your own."

 _Terrain? Conflict?_ "How complicated are the rules?" she asked warily, eying the game with trepidition.

"They're still being worked on," her teammate said with a shrug. "Shimizu was writing them down on the wall so we could remember. Do you want to play? We left a space for you."

"What happens to Shimizu's quadrant when he's on watch? If the goal is to take over the map, he's got a disadvantage?"

"We chose to institute a level of protection," Uchiha inserted smoothly, rolling the dice that Ikeda passed him. "While on watch, or asleep, you can choose to either leave it up to fate, or close your borders. Although, I believe we imposed a penalty for closing the borders?"

"Shimizu called it the _civil war penalty_ , I think," Ikeda answered. "You lose one card's worth of troops in exchange for having your border closed. Nobody in and nobody out. And the card is chosen at random. Want to play?"

"Why not?" It wasn't as if she had anything better to do.

* * *

To her surprise, the game turned out to be fairly addicting, with just enough challenge to keep it interesting without growing tedious.

It also lasted forever.

The initial game lasted a week, with all of them playing on and off. Ikeda won, surprisingly enough, although Shimizu immediately reset the board, redrew the terrain, and started a rematch.

Sakura split her time fairly evenly between her shifts, sleeping, studying the tasks her mentors had set her, keeping up with her conditioning, and playing the game. Since a single person's turn could last for awhile, they started holding sit up and push up contests, which evolved into planking and sprint races. Uchiha didn't seem to have a problem with them doing their conditioning that way, and it made things a little more fun.

While working on her genjutsus, Sakura was surprised to find a willing assistant in Shimizu. During their second week, while Ikeda was studying the game board and Uchiha was on watch, he found her studying the genjutsu scrolls and shaping the handsigns slowly, muttering under her breath as she went.

"What are you working on?" he asked, dropping down in front of her, face scrunching up as he tried to read the scroll upside down.

"My shishou gave me a bunch of genjutsu to learn while I was away," Sakura answered distractedly, slowly making each hand sign for the one she was working on, then repeating the sequence, slightly faster. "It's hard to do without him though."

"I thought he couldn't use chakra?"

"He can't," Sakura agreed, grinning as she reached the speed which Orochimaru had told her was _minimum_ required speed for a genin-level fight. (He, _of course_ , wanted her to be able to produce them accurately at _chuunin_ level or above, but this was good for first attempts.) "But he can break them when they're cast on him, so he's my practice dummy."

"How nasty are they?" The wariness in his voice made Sakura look up from her handsigns, still repeating the same sequence without even attempting to mold her chakra. Her teammate looked slightly uncomfortable, but determined. "I could be your practice dummy, as long as they aren't going to scar me for life or something like that."

"I don't think they're _that_ bad?" she responded. Most of them were altering perception of the surroundings for those caught within the range of the genjutsu. The snake sannin had told her that there was no way she would be allowed to work with those that acted directly on the target until she had mastered the general surroundings jutsus he was teaching her. "I mean, the worst you could do is walk off a cliff."

As Shimizu blanched, she rethought her statement and blanched as well. "Not that I would _actually_ make you walk off a cliff. Since you're a teammate, I'd probably just shift the cliff edge closer, so you end up staying much farther away than you actually need to."

He laughed a little, and said: "If you want someone to practice on, I'm game."

So, once she was ready, they sat together in either the terrace or the common room, and Sakura worked on gradually introducing her genjutsus until he didn't know that he was even under one until she snapped him out of it. They made an agreement that whenever both of them were playing the war game, she was allowed to subtly work a genjutsu to alter his perceptions of the board, so long as it didn't give her the advantage.

Most of the time she was honest.

(That one time where she made him think his genin pawns were jounin and led him into a massacre perpetrated by Ikeda, all so she could sneak through the neutral zone and claim his quadrant before he even realized there was a genjutsu affecting him _did not count_ and she would swear it was just happy coincidence.)

* * *

Two nights before their relief was due, Sakura was coming off her watch at four in the morning. Calling a soft goodbye to Ikeda, who was cradling a cup of hot tea, she slid down the ladder, still debating about staying awake for a while longer or going back to sleep.

To her surprise, Uchiha was sitting at the table, a cup of tea in front of him.

"Is something wrong?" she asked warily, because while she had no love for her sensei, she had seen enough "easy" missions go to shit in an instant to let a sign like this slip past without checking in. (One mission was enough, two if you counted the chuunin exams.)

He raised his eyes, and Sakura instinctively took a step back as she saw the sharingan spinning, three tomoes dark against the red. What had seemed so safe when Kakashi-sensei had unveiled it was now terrifying.

Uchiha chuckled, curling his fingers around the teacup. "From a team with two sharingan users, and you're just like everyone else."

"They were my _allies_ ," Sakura hissed, mindful of Shimizu asleep in the next room. "You…"

"Are your genin sensei," Uchiha interrupted. "Not that you like it."

"You make no sense," Sakura snapped softly, her own fingers curling into fists. "For someone who murdered his entire clan for power, you seem fairly sane. Why should we trust _you_?"

Frozen under his eyes as they snapped to her, she watched as they spun, changed. "Do you know how the sharingan is activated, Shiroyami-san?"

"Near death experience?" she ventured, remembering when Sasuke activated his on the bridge in Wave.

The chuckle now had a mocking lilt to it, making her hackles rise. "Not quite, Shiroyami-san. It's triggered by any intense emotion, usually relating to someone close to us. For an Uchiha to be granted the Mangekyo, they must undergo a loss so profound it's like their world is being ripped away from them."

"Is that why you did it?" she needled, unable to stand there and let him terrify her into silence. "Were you unable to achieve it, the trauma needed for the Mangekyo, so you orchestrated it?"

" _You know nothing_ ," he hissed, clenching his fingers around the teacup so hard that she heard it crack. " _Nothing_ about me."

"I know what matters," Sakura retorted, glaring back. "You're a murderer."

"All shinobi are murderers, no matter what Konoha may preach," Uchiha said with a shrug. "Your shishou murdered children."

"Are we going to hash this over again?"

"Go to bed, Shiroyami-san," Uchiha said tiredly, closing his eyes. "You'll be back in the citadel in a few days, where you won't be stuck in my presence for any longer than you have to be."

Irritated at his order, but glad to leave the room, she stalked out, knowing that she was now too awake to go to sleep. Genjutsu scrolls it was.

 *****A bit of mission life for the team, and some more Sakura/Itachi conflict. Just a warning, next week is probably going to be rough for all involved, so be prepared.*****


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

"We have a mission."

Sakura didn't even bother looking up at this announcement, finding the book in her lap far more interesting. It was probably just another month at the outpost.

Besides, her shishou had finally declared her ready to start on genjutsus that acted on the victim directly, and she was learning so much from Sasori-sensei about poisons...she had been wary when Kabuto-sensei had sent her to the short, standoffish redhead for supplementary training, but she had found the study of poisons and their antidotes fascinating.

Kabuto had openly admitted that she had reached the skill level of a good field medic, able to handle all but the most severe injuries on her own, and to get her squad home if given the chance. The only thing that she had left to learn was poisons and their treatment, but he hadn't stayed in Konoha long enough to learn that, and his work under Orochimaru had only touched on snake venoms, which while interesting, weren't common since most shinobi favored botanical poisons or chemical ones.

Sasori-sensei had given her a flat stare when she arrived at his office in the R&D building, surprised to learn that it had an inhabitant other than Orochimaru, but he had placed three vials in front of her and declared that she was going to be decoding his poisons and creating antidotes the old fashioned way, since they didn't have any of the high tech lab equipment that any other hospital would have and their electricity was limited to hot water heaters, since what wire was stowed in the vaults had been used only for the hospital and the administration building, where the need was greatest.

She was _almost_ at the cusp of decoding one of them, Sakura felt certain of it. But Sasori-sensei had kicked her out of the lab after two hours of work in the near darkness, lit only by the candles that had been allotted to her during one of the vault distributions. As he kicked her out, he had informed her that if she even thought about working on her poison decoding for the next twenty-four hours he would know and she would find her notes mysteriously missing and have to start from scratch.

So instead she was looking over a psychology textbook that Kabuto had given her, trying to work on making her genjutsus more effective. Altering surroundings was all well and good, but she wanted to be able to get into someone's _head_. Kakashi's first fight with Zabuza had been an illustration of how even a senior shinobi could get rattled by mind games.

"Back to the outpost again?" Ikeda asked from where he had been stretching after breakfast, so as to be somewhat more prepared if they were training during the morning, or just a bit more flexible if it was another mission.

"No, this one's considerably more important. Pack for a week and a half, and meet me in the waiting area outside the council room in an hour."

Lifting her eyes from her book, Sakura raised her eyebrow. "A mission that requires a Council briefing? And they're giving it to genin?"

"Go pack," Uchiha reiterated, before disappearing in a shunshin.

 _Of course_ , Sakura thought as she closed her book. _He would choose to take me away from my mentors when I'm working on interesting things. And a week and a half could be enough to drive all thoughts of that poison out of my head…_

Back in her room, she sorted through her few belongings, only to be surprised as she heard Naruto's excited whooping.

"We're going on a mission, Sakura-chan!" he exclaimed bouncing up and down as she poked her head out of her door. "A big mission, according to Kisame-sensei!"

Who, apparently, Naruto had forgiven for the attempted kidnapping and subsequent harm of Sasuke, since the two were bonding over the number of laps Naruto was running for disobedience. _Must be nice not to be so cynical_.

"My team has an important mission too," she replied, adjusting the shoulder straps on her pack so that they would fit a bit better. "We're meeting for briefing in an hour."

"Us too!" Naruto crowed. "Maybe we're going together?"

"Who knows," she answered. "If you see Karin or Tenten, let them know we'll be away for about a week and a half?"

"Got it," Naruto answered, before ducking into his own room, presumably to pack.

Leaving the Academy, where the shinobi were still quartered since they hadn't run water pipes out to any of the apartment buildings that had been built in the third or first circles, Sakura headed for the hospital. While never wanting to be more than a field medic, she still helped Kabuto-sensei in the hospital, since they were the only two capable of chakra-based healing.

He was with Nagato, doing the daily treatments that would keep the man's already ruined legs from withering away further. Neither of them looked up as she entered the room, but Konan did, offering a slight smile. "Shiroyami-san, I thought today was your off day?"

"Hai, Konan-san, but my team and I are leaving on a mission. We're to be away for a week and a half."

"So it's your team then," she mused, tapping a finger against her chin. "Do you know who else they're sending?"

"Hoshigaki's team," Sakura replied, wondering what the woman knew about her mission. "They haven't told us anything yet though."

"You'll find out soon enough," Konan assured her with a brief smile. "May the wind fill your sails."

"And the fish fill your nets," Sakura completed the farewell that she had learned from listening to the scattered survivors in the early days of reclaiming the citadel. It was an old Uzushio saying, apparently, and it felt right on her tongue whenever she said it. Bowing slightly, she left through the window, making the short trek across to the R&D building.

Sasori-sensei's office was the first place she stopped, and the redhead sighed as he picked up the scroll she had been using to take notes. "I warned you Shiroyami," he said flatly.

"I'm leaving on a mission," she blurted out before he could destroy her notes. "For a week and a half. I was coming to tell you."

He set the scroll down. "Very well then. I will keep this for your return. If you see any of the plants we have discussed, I would appreciate samples."

"Hai sensei."

Orochimaru's office was her final stop; the snake sannin standing at his window much like the day she had first approached him to be her sensei. "Another mission then, Shiroyami?"

"Just a week and a half this time Shishou," she murmured. "Do you have any assignments for me?"

"Contemplate how you would manipulate your teammates using genjutsu," the snake sannin answered after a moment. "You know them well, or should. Think about what would have the greatest effect on them. Genjutsu is, in a way, a study of human psychology. While I am not advocating for the use of genjutsu on your teammates, they are a good place to start."

As she gave verbal assent, Orochimaru turned his gaze away from the window to meet hers. "Come back safely Shiroyami," he ordered, a hint of tension in his voice. "I have invested too much in you now to find myself without my latest apprentice."

"Hai Shishou."

* * *

 _Of course_ , she thought, narrowly dodging a kunai and answering it with a well aimed senbon, _this had to be the mission where everything went to hell in a handbasket_.

It had seemed innocuous enough. They were ready to open the harbors, couldn't wait any longer to open the harbors really, and for that they needed trade agreements. The docks could be built easily; their foundations lurked under the surface of the harbors, waiting only for the surface to be placed atop them. But trade agreements were harder, especially when one was trying to remain under the radar.

"We're approaching two of the smaller countries: Frost and Wave," her grandmother had explained at the briefing. "Uzumaki, I understand you have some connection with Wave?"

Naruto had punched the air and seemed about to tell the story of the Great Naruto Bridge, but thankfully, the retelling was forestalled.

"Hoshigaki, your team will carry the treaty to Wave. If they agree, bring the signed treaty back. If they wish to negotiate terms, carry their proposed treaty back. If they refuse the treaty, bring it back. _Under no circumstances_ should you set foot in Fire."

"Uchiha," Shiroyami said, turning to face Sakura and her team. "You and your genin will take the treaty to Frost. The same orders apply to you. Do not confront any foreign shinobi you may encounter unless absolutely necessary."

 _Absolutely necessary_ , Sakura thought dryly, wishing that Sasori-sensei had allowed her to coat her senbon in poison. But _no_ , poisons were to only be used when you knew how to create both them _and_ the antidote. Ducking a katon that nearly burnt off a good portion of her hair, she quickly checked the battlefield for her teammates.

Shimizu and Ikeda were fighting back to back, making a good showing despite the fact that Sakura suspected their attackers to be Kumo ANBU forces. But it wouldn't be enough. Right now they weren't dead because the Kumo shinobi would rather take them alive.

"Run," a dark shape whispered as it darted by her, yanking her narrowly away from the wind jutsu that might have taken her head off. "Get the boys and _run_."

"No way in hell," Sakura hissed, even as she fell back with Ikeda and Shimizu, regrouping as Uchiha drew off the immediate attacks. "Even _you_ can't hold off six S-ranked shinobi on your own."

"Stop arguing and get moving!" Uchiha shouted, the first time he had ever raised his voice at her. Ikeda and Shimizu fell back immediately, but Sakura stayed put. "Get going," she called to them, glad that Shimizu was carrying the treaty scroll and not her.

Without looking to see if they had started running for the coast, where hopefully the boat they had arrived on was still in port, waiting to take them home, Sakura stood her ground as two Kumo shinobi came at her, likely planning on going after the boys.

"Surrender, kunoichi," one of them suggested as he drew a long katana. "You can't be more than a genin."

Sakura's lip curled as she whirled through familiar signs, shaping the illusion as Orochimaru had guided her. It was just an area genjutsu, but her shishou had forced her to be subtle, forced her to lay her traps so that they were practically invisible without the help of a doujutsu or long exposure to genjutsus.

This one didn't have to be flashy. The Kumo shinobi probably knew the surroundings better than she did, so it was no use trying to alter it. But she could alter how they saw her.

Once she had stood on a bridge and watched an army of thugs run screaming from an array of shadow clones. She didn't have the reserves for shadow clones, but she could do illusions.

And illusions didn't disperse when they were hit.

As soon as the genjutsu activated she was moving, sliding through the battleground that now appeared to be filled with copies of her. It seemed to startle the shinobi momentarily, but one of them shrugged, and flashed through the signs for a ninjutsu. Expecting it, she hit the ground as a scything wind flashed through her illusory copies.

"Come out little kunoichi," the same shinobi with the katana called irritably. "Parlor tricks aren't going to work on us."

" _Get moving_ ," Uchiha hissed from where he was engaging with the other half of the squad. "That's an order!"

"It's a stupid order," she hissed under her breath, crawling towards the nearest Kumo shinobi, readying two kunai. _Legs are a very delicate part of a shinobi's anatomy._

All she really needed was to make sure that none of these shinobi could chase them.

Lunging like a striking snake, she slashed the shinobi's Achilles's tendon before darting to her feet and putting as much distance as she could between the shinobi she just felled. He let out a roar of pain as he crumpled, but Sakura only felt vicious satisfaction.

However, her satisfaction was short lived as a kunai handle thudded into the back of her head, sending her into unconsciousness.

* * *

When she woke, she was lying on cold stone, with heavy metal cuffs around her wrists, pinning them behind her back.

Wincing, she sat up slowly, trying to figure out what she could. That she was in a prison cell was obvious. Given that they had been fighting _Kumo_ shinobi...well, it was pretty good odds that she was in Kumogakure.

"You should have run."

Forgetting about her headache, she whipped her head around to see Uchiha, dressed in what could only be baggy prison scrubs, manacled to the wall, a strip of cloth tied over his eyes.

"I may not like you," she muttered, wishing she could rub her temples in an attempt to rid herself of her headache. Or access her chakra, which kept slipping away from her when she tried to reach it. "But I'm not callous enough to leave you alone when you're outmatched."

"It's what you're supposed to do," her sensei said flatly. "You are not cannon fodder."

Before Sakura could respond, a door she hadn't been able to see in the dim light opened, and a form stood outlined in the light that poured in. "Kunoichi-chan!" the shinobi said, sounding all too chipper for an enemy shinobi. "You're awake. Why don't we have a conversation?"

The shinobi stepped aside, and two others entered the cell. As they hauled Sakura upright, she lunged forward in a vain attempt to headbutt one of them, but he shoved her back into the other shinobi's arms and laughed. "Nice try little genin."

She snarled at him, and squirmed in her captor's grasp as they marched her out of the cell and down a short hallway to a bare room, with only a table and two chairs _s_ et up like a menacing centerpiece.

Grudgingly, she allowed them to chain her to the chair that was bolted into the floor, since she really had no other options. The shinobi who had spoken first took the seat across from her. "Well, Kunoichi-chan, why don't we chat?"

They had never really covered interrogation resistance during the Academy in Konoha. Sakura had always assumed that it was the jounin-sensei's job to make sure their genin were capable of resisting interrogation, and Uchiha hadn't covered that with them yet.

But she stayed silent, knowing that right now, whatever they did to her, _she must not give up Uzushio_.

In her mind, she saw Uzushio as it had appeared to her the day she first learned its name: broken and still smoldering, with the bodies of her people lying in the surf.

If she betrayed Uzushio here, it would be over. Kumogakure was _strong_. So strong that the Sandaime hadn't wanted to risk war over an attempted kidnapping of a _Hyuuga_. (She wasn't supposed to know that story, but Academy students gossiped.) They would go to Uzushio and raze the citadel to the ground. Karin and Tenten would be killed, and Naruto taken captive for the Kyuubi inside of him. Everyone that she had come to know and care about would be destroyed, and it would all be her _fault_.

Apparently understanding that such easy questions wouldn't get him anything from her, the interrogator moved on. "What's your name Kunoichi-chan? I can't just call you that."

Sakura stared down at her hands, which had been unshackled from each other and shackled to the arms of the chair. There was still dirt caked under her fingernails, and she thought there were twigs in her hair.

"So, Kunoichi-chan," the interrogator tried with a friendly smile. "You must be pretty special to be travelling with Uchiha Itachi. What's a pretty girl like you doing with a dangerous man like him?"

She almost hissed at him in anger. Sakura was under no illusions. _Ino_ was pretty. Sakura was tolerable, not ugly but not pretty either, and months in Uzushio as it was now was no way to keep up one's looks, even if she was still interested in doing so. She was a _shinobi_ , and as much as she hated to admit it, the Oto kunoichi's words from the Forest of Death still taunted her.

Her reaction must have been somewhat noticeable, since the interrogator raised his eyebrow. "You do know he's an S-ranked missing-nin, right?" he asked dryly. "Killed his entire clan. Surprised he took on a gaggle of apprentices though. Didn't think he had it in him."

 _He was forced to_ , Sakura didn't say. It was what she suspected had happened. There were only so many jounin, and Uchiha and the other Akatsuki were powerful. Letting them pass on their skills to the genin would be a good way of utilizing them but keeping them close.

"Did he take you off the mainland? Take you to a bunch of old ruins and have you dig around?" He rummaged in his pocket for a moment before he produced a shiny hitai-ite and laid it on the table.

Relief warred with the need to stay silent. _They didn't know about Uzushio_. The boys had possibly evaded capture, or were dead, but the Kumo shinobi didn't know about how they had reclaimed the citadel. As long as she kept silent, they would continue to think that all that was left of Uzushio were old walls and stories.

"See, it looks like the symbol of a village that used to be on this tiny little island," he continued, tapping the spiral etched into the metal. "But that village is long gone, and this looks almost new. Did you find some kind of vault or something, with a bunch of things? Scrolls or something like that?"

They were the first in the citadel to be issued hitai-ites. The council had considered it, when the genin teams were formed, but they had decided the risk of exposure was too high. Sakura had only received hers because she was placed on the trade mission, and the council had decided that they might need them to show legitimacy. All of the shinobi assigned to official village business would be granted a hitai-ite when on missions like that until they were secure enough to wear them openly. It had rested in her weapons pouch as ordered, not to be shown unless challenged by the daimyo in Frost.

And now it lay on the metal interrogation table, clear proof that the Kumo shinobi interrogating her had no idea where she had come from, or why she had been where she had been.

"Come now, Kunoichi-chan," the interrogator leaned in, almost as if he was sharing a secret with her. "Surely it wouldn't hurt to tell me just a _few_ things? This hitai-ite won't hurt anyone if you tell me about it."

She almost laughed at how wrong he was. Telling him about the hitai-ite would expose everyone she was trying to protect.

"See, one of my friends is waiting outside the door to take you to another room," he continued, looking mournful. "He's the one who's going to be all rough with you. But I can send you back to your cell if you just answer one teensy question for me. Where did you find the hitai-ite?"

Long minutes stretched out, and she went back to studying her fingernails.

Finally, the interrogator let out a long, remorseful sigh. "I gave you a chance, Kunoichi-chan."

Another man came in, and he reminded her a bit of the proctor from the first part of Konoha's chuunin exams. Not so much in appearance, but in demeanor. He looked...hard. She was reminded a bit of Orochimaru, when her shishou was at his most obstinate and contrary, but where the sannin radiated an aura of subtle malice, there was nothing subtle about this shinobi. He would cause her pain, and didn't care to hide that fact.

Sakura was unshackled from the chair, her chakra stirring faintly in the instant between the chair releasing her and the old shackles returning, and then she was marched down the hall into a much darker room, much more frightening.

They manhandled her into a set of shackles on the wall, her arms secured above her head, toes barely scraping the floor. Vaguely, she noticed a pair of younger looking shinobi enter the room, but her attention was solely focused on the man who had brought her into the torture room.

She watched him slide through a sequence of hand signs, and then almost immediately felt herself struggling to breathe. As hard as she tried, she couldn't get enough _air_.

Then something changed, and she sucked in great gulps of air greedily, only to find herself short of breath again only moments later.

Tears came to her eyes as she fought to breathe, each time the struggle lasting longer and longer while the periods when she could breathe were shortened. Every so often, one of the interrogators would ask her if she wanted to answer questions now, but she remained silent.

Eventually, she passed out.

* * *

Telling time was difficult, trapped in a windowless cell with only one meal a day. Sakura found herself in the position where she was responsible for feeding Uchiha, since he was never released from his chains, which were only inches long, not enough to allow him to put anything in his mouth. They spoke little, unsure of how closely they were being monitored by their captors, and not willing to risk letting something slip.

After what Sakura thought might be a week, they came up with a new method of torture.

"Nothing funny," one of the interrogators warned, his kunai held at Sakura's throat, forcing her chin up to look at Uchiha, who was being restrained by a further two interrogators as his neck was being collared and chained to the wall as well. It was hard to tell, but it looked as if the collar had spikes on the inner edges, preventing him from moving it too suddenly. "Or your little student here will pay the price."

Horrified, Sakura watched as they undid the blindfold, only to smirk as she met Uchiha's dark eyes. If they were expecting him to use one of the sharingan's notoriously powerful genjutsus to try and break her mind, they would have to be a lot more daring than that.

But her humor was soon gone, as they adjusted the cuffs around his wrists and positioned him so that he was looking at her. "Activate it," the lead interrogator hissed, forcing her chin up as she tried to look away. "Use that special doujutsu of yours, the one they say traps you for three days."

Terrified, remembering what had happened to Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei after being subjected to the genjutsu, Sakura squirmed desperately, trying to get away from the kunai at her throat, but she was gripped even more firmly and forced to meet the red and black pinwheels of the sharingan.

* * *

She was in a world of black and white, almost as if she was trapped in Ino's Mind-Transfer jutsu again. For a moment, she was alone, and then she saw Itachi, dressed in his normal jounin outfit instead of the prison scrubs.

"I will not torture you, Shiroyami-san," he said flatly. "But I will use this time to show you something, since we are trapped here for three days."

The world spun around her, and she was back in Konoha.

* * *

The Kyuubi rampaged over the village walls.

All around her, parts of Konoha were burning and people were screaming. Sakura herself shrunk back as the chaos around her intensified before realizing that she was completely intangible.

She was in some sort of garden, she realized as she looked around. A garden in a fairly affluent part of Konoha, it seemed, based on the amount of space, and how neatly it was laid out.

A small form hunched over on the steps drew her eye, and she almost took a step back when she realized that it was Itachi, cradling a bundle that could only be Sasuke.

"This is where it started," a voice said, and she pivoted to see the older Itachi standing behind her, looking wistfully at his younger self on the steps.

"What do you mean?" she asked, confused by why he had brought her to this specific point in time. If he was going to show her something, why start with the Kyuubi attack.

"The road to the massacre," he clarified, eyes still fixed on his younger form. "It all started this day, at least to me. The groundwork had been laid years and years before, but this is when we set ourselves on a path that led only to death."

"This is when you started on the path that lead you to being a power-hungry murderer?" Sakura snarked, looking at the scene in front of them with disbelief. "Sure."

"Don't try to stop me!" a woman's voice hissed from inside the house. "I'm going out there, whether you like it or not. Kushina's _pregnant_ , could be giving birth in the middle of all of this, and I'm not going to let her do it alone."

"Hokage's orders," a man's voice replied, distaste clear in his tone. "All Uchiha are to stay within Uchiha district until the beast is contained."

A wordless noise of angry protest. "When we could help?" the woman cried, and then a sound like something slamming on the table. "You know the histories as well as I do, Fugaku. The sharingan could control the beast, subdue it until Minato can seal it. We would do much more good out _there_!"

"Perhaps that is why we're restricted to the district," the man's voice said coolly. "From what little is known of what Senju-sama did to the biju during his fight with Madara, it is clear that whoever set the beast loose is far more talented than the average shinobi."

"None of us would dare to!"

"You think that the Hokage would believe us, if we said we had nothing to do with it?" the man replied bitterly. "Already the Uchiha are being overlooked for high ranking missions. Several of our chuunin were refused posts at the Academy, or moved out of sensitive positions. It's subtle, but the discrimination that the Nidaime began is still pervasive in Konoha. And the Sandaime is his student."

There was a sound of flesh hitting flesh, and the woman snarled: "Don't be foolish, Fugaku. Minato is fair, he wouldn't turn against the Uchiha! And if he would, Kushina and I are friends! She'll listen to me!"

"I truly hope so," Fugaku murmured, almost too quietly to hear. "I truly hope so."

"My parents," Itachi said, breaking the silence that had fallen in the garden. Outside the walls, the sounds of battle and destruction raged on as the Kyuubi continued its rampage, but this area of Konoha, an area Sakura thought might have been a market, if she was getting her bearing right, was stiffly silent.

"The Uchiha were confined to their district the night of the Kyuubi attack?" Sakura asked, and then immediately asked: "There was discrimination against the Uchiha? The sharingan can control the Kyuubi?"

"Yes."

"To which question?"

"All of them." Itachi looked briefly at her, and then his eyes focused on his younger self and Sasuke. "I was about to enter the Academy, and many of my clan thought me a prodigy. They hoped that I would break many of the fears that had lingered between our clan and the village since Uchiha Madara turned his back on the Shodaime. The sharingan is said to be able to control the biju, which led to even further tensions after this night. Even though were were restricted to our district, until they ordered us to evacuate, suspicion fell on all of us."

"Who was Minato? And your mom knew Naruto's mom?" Sakura was only half interested in the answers, but she needed time to process the previous response.

"Namikaze Minato was the Yondaime Hokage, a seal master who died sealing the Kyuubi no Kitsune. And I did not know until much later that my mother and Uzumaki Kushina had been friends, though it explains my mother's anger at the ill-treatment Uzumaki Naruto received."

 _Yondaime Hokage_... _holy mother of-_ "Naruto's father was the Yondaime," Sakura breathed, eyes widening. "Oooooh, he's going to love this…" It was obvious, now that she thought about it. The yellow hair, the bright smile...and why neither of Naruto's parents was alive.

"If you survive long enough to tell him," Itachi reminded her.

 *****Squeaking in before midnight. Sorry to keep anyone waiting! And here we go, the start of the trauma arc. I apologize in advance to all and sundry for my terrible violence descriptions, and many thanks to both my fiance and the wonderful papalogia for telling me exactly how to incapacitate a person so they won't be able to chase you.*****


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine:**

Sakura rolled over in time to vomit onto the floor instead of choking on it.

The Kumo shinobi in charge of interrogating them didn't seem too fussed about the chances of her dying that way, since after every Tsukiyomi session she was always dumped on her back, even though after a week of sessions under Itachi's red and black gaze her habit of vomiting every time she came to was well established.

Most of what she had seen was slogging through his genin days, and the early days after he had been made chuunin. None of it helped explain the Massacre as he had suggested, although she had learned a lot about one Uchiha Shisui, Itachi's cousin and best friend.

During the second session, she had asked Itachi why she had woken up after a few hours, instead of having to be revived by a competent medic, as Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei had. Apparently while they allowed him use of his chakra, it was barely enough to support Tsukiyomi, but his choice of non-traumatizing images did less to mess with her head, therefore avoiding prompting the brain's automatic defense of retreating when traumatized.

Now that she was awake, the interrogators opened the door and hauled her upright before marching her to the torture chamber. They seemed frustrated that they hadn't been able to get anything out of her, not even her name.

Itachi had told her that the seal originally placed on him to prevent him from discussing Uzushio had never been removed, and their interrogators had discovered it during their initial torture session with him. So they focused their efforts on her, but Sakura refused to break.

If she broke, Uzushio would burn.

It was that simple.

Today was a katon day, she knew as they changed over her manacles to the metal table that was just long enough so that her feet hung off. In the split second between her manacles coming off and the chains attached to the table going on, she sent a weak pulse of medical chakra through her system, blocking the nerves in her feet from transmitting. It had taken a few attempts to get the timing right, but she had managed it a few days ago, during one of the raiton days.

They picked a different element each day. It was how she told time now, without having the sun to guide her.

Blocking nerves to prevent the feeling of pain was something she and Kabuto had stumbled across while trying to figure out a way to treat their patients without access to any painkillers. They could have had Kakuzu and Hidan purchase painkillers, but the bounty money the pair collected was enough to purchase food and necessities. Painkillers, especially the hospital grade variety, were simply out of their budget.

So she blocked her nerves and closed her eyes, waiting out the torture period for that day. At the end of the session, a medic was brought in to heal the worst of the damage, and Sakura unblocked her nerves as quickly as she could before the man could notice what she had done, gritting her teeth against the sudden influx of pain.

The first day they had the medic attend to her was the first day they used raiton jutsus in their torture. When she had asked why, the interrogator's grin had sent a shiver up her spine, unrelated to the aftershocks still causing tremors as they passed through.

"We plan to make use of you after we're done wringing what information we can get out of you," he had said as the medic's green hands and soothed away the tremors. "The sharingan's a valuable commodity these days, and with you here we won't have to take a kunoichi out of the mission rotation while we figure out how to ensure it gets passed along."

It was easy enough to read between the lines of that, and enough to make her want to hurl. She had worked too hard and come too far to be anybody's broodmare, let alone the Uchiha's.

But so far they hadn't unchained him from the wall, leaving her responsible for feeding him when their one meal arrived. Every other day, they would be doused with several suiton jutsus in place of showers, and somehow the cell was cleaned while she was out being interrogated, even though the smell of vomit was practically burned into her nostrils.

Once the medic was done with her, she wobbled back to her cell on unsteady, recently burned and healed feet. Food was already waiting, and she silently fed her jounin sensei before catching a short nap. Tsukiyomi was always a few hours after a meal, likely to prevent her mind from snapping under the physical and mental torture.

She no longer fought as they forced her to meet the red and black sharingan, but met Itachi's gaze head on. If all he did was show her his childhood, she had nothing to fear.

Of course, because that was just the way her life seemed to go, she was completely and totally wrong.

Sakura watched, with Itachi's older self at her side, as the younger Itachi and Shisui were inducted into ANBU together, and placed under a younger Kakashi-sensei's leadership. ANBU wasn't a walk in the park, even for shinobi, and Sakura woke up from the aftermath heaving until there was nothing left in her stomach to bring up.

All the while Itachi watched her silently from his place chained to the wall.

* * *

The citadel was oddly silent as Naruto and his team made their way through the streets to the fourth circle. There were still teams of shinobi and civilians working together to make the citadel whole again, but their enthusiasm was gone, replaced with a nervous tension. When they heard Naruto's bright greetings, they smiled slightly, but then the worry replaced the smile, along with something that looked a little bit like relief.

Unease was gnawing in Naruto's gut by the time they reached the administrative building, and only Kisame-sensei's hand on his shoulder kept him from vibrating out of his skin. He felt as if he was in Wave again, not the Wave he had just left, with Tazuna and Inari's cheerful farewells called out as their boat left the docks, but the Wave he had first gone to, oppressed by Gato and living in fear. To see his _home_ like this...it was terrifying.

When they presented themselves in front of the council, there was no mistaking the relief on the senior shinobi's faces. "Welcome back, Team 1," one of the older jounin said with a slight smile. "We are relieved that you have returned safely."

"And your mission?" one of the senior kunoichi asked, eyes sharp. "What was the outcome?"

"Wave made no alterations to the treaty you drafted, and their representative signed." Kisame-sensei said, digging the scroll out of his weapons pouch. "They've agreed to route all of their shipping on this side of Fire through the citadel, with their first ships bringing lumber and foodstuffs specifically for our use. They say it is a gift to us, since Uzumaki and his team saved their country."

"Did you encounter any foreign shinobi?" another of the council members asked, and Naruto watched each and every one of them stiffen.

"None," the jounin replied, and then everyone in the room flinched as an explosion boomed in the direction of the training grounds.

"Uzumaki again?" the jounin who had first spoken asked, rubbing his temples. "Did you truly have to begin teaching her sealing Shiroyami?"

Sakura's grandmother remained stony. "I thought it would be for the best. She shows quite an aptitude for sealing, you can't deny it."

"But you had to start with _explosive_ tags," someone else muttered. "On a genin who's already volatile?"

"What's going on?" Naruto blurted. The genin weren't supposed to learn sealing until they made chuunin, since most of the jounin who remembered their lessons in fuuinjutsu were busy teaching the chuunin who missed out on the opportunity to learn it in the citadel. For Sakura's grandmother to have taught Karin…

"Is Sakura-chan back yet?" Her team should be back too; they had been on the same mission, right?

The silence that fell was even thicker than the pervasive gloom in the citadel.

"Shimizu and Ikeda returned a few days ago," Sakura's grandmother said flatly. "Their team was intercepted by Kumo shinobi before they even reached Frost."

"Where's Sakura-chan?" Naruto shouted, looking from face to face wildly. He had lost Sasuke, he wasn't going to lose her too! "Did they get separated?"

"We sent a pair of jounin to the site of the ambush, but there was no sign of Uchiha or Shiroyami," one of the other council members said slowly, eyeing Sakura's grandmother warily. "Given the reports from Shimizu and Ikeda, it is almost certain that they were captured by the Kumo shinobi."

"We're getting them back, right?" the blond said, clenching his hands into fists. "When do we leave?"

"There is a citadel meeting tonight to discuss the options, open to all shinobi of at least genin rank," another member of the council informed him. "Normally, this decision would be made by a headman or Kage, but since there is not an appointed leader, we have chosen to ask for input from all who might be involved or affected by the decision."

Before Naruto could ask more questions, Kisame-sensei's hand clamped down on his shoulder and steered him out of the room, not letting up until they were out of the building and part of the way to the training grounds. Ran and Sora, his two teammates had left to unpack, since they had the rest of the day off, but Naruto didn't want to unpack if he was going to go after Sakura.

"Listen up kid," Kisame-sensei said when they reached their usual training ground. "There's something you need to understand before the meeting tonight, since you're not going to like a lot of what you hear."

"Like what?" Naruto challenged, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Like that they're not even going to try and recover them," the tall jounin said bluntly. "It's suicidal."

"But it's Sakura-chan! And teme's brother!"

"It's _Kumo_ who has them, brat. They might even be stronger than Konoha at this point in time, depending on how the rebuilding has gone. If we make too much noise, they'll squash us like a bug. Most likely, when the council votes, they'll vote not to try and recover Itachi and the girl. The citadel is not worth a jounin and a genin."

"But-" Naruto began, angry at how easily the man was discussing leaving Sakura and Sasuke's brother in Kumo. "We have to rescue them! They're _ours_! What if they…" The blond couldn't vocalize the rest of his sentence, but the way Kisame-sensei smiled grimly suggested that the jounin knew that it ended with _killed them_.

"Kumo won't kill them off right away brat. They're probably still alive, since news of someone claiming Itachi's bounty would have spread quickly. Plus, Kumo's always been a bit funny about doujutsus, so they may not ever give up Itachi. Even when they find out about the seal."

"What seal?"

Kisame-sensei sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. "All of us Akatsuki members, part of our punishment, and Uzushio's precautions, got a seal placed on us keeping us from talking about the citadel without direct authorization. I could talk to the bridge builder since he was Wave's designated person to deal with us, but I couldn't talk to anyone else about Uzushio. Itachi's the same way. No torture could get him to say a single word about the citadel unless he was speaking to the headman in Frost."

"We don't have those seals?" Naruto asked, hand unconsciously coming to rest on the Kyuubi's seal. "So we could have told someone?"

"Yeah," Kisame-sensei looked grim. "Your friend...it may be better if she's already dead. Once they figure out that Itachi _can't_ talk...they'll be trying to get her to spill everything she knows."

Rage burned hot in Naruto's gut as he realized was his sensei was implying, but before he could say anything, Kisame's hand dropped down on his shoulder.

"It's part of being a shinobi," his sensei said coolly. "If you can't handle it, you're going to have a lot of grief in your career. Tonight there's probably going to be a lot of people saying things you don't want to hear. Maybe you'll get mad enough that the fox might start waking up. If he does, I'm going to knock you out and send you to bed like the brat you are. Leveling the citadel with him just because you're angry isn't going to do anything useful for your friend."

* * *

The meeting was held after dinner, on the first floor of the administration building. Naruto sat shoulder to shoulder with Tenten and Karin, both looking fierce as they glared up at the council. Tenten's buns were messy, and Karin's face was smudged with soot. When he had met up with them earlier, both had been angry and scared, and Naruto had to admit to feeling much the same way.

He had kept Kisame-sensei's words to himself though, not wanting to say them out loud in case they came true.

"We've called this meeting tonight because of a situation," the eldest council member said as he took his seat on the stone stools that had been brought in specifically for the council to sit on during the meeting. "A jounin and a genin are missing, presumably held by Kumogakure. Normally, actions in this matter would be decided by a headman or kage, but given our...unique situation, we have chosen to hold a public forum to get your input on the matter. The council will vote tomorrow and announce the decision at this time tomorrow night. I open the floor for questions and comments."

"What do you know about the situation?" one of the chuunin called.

"Uchiha and his team were on a diplomatic mission to Frost. They were not openly wearing hitai-ites, although they carried them in their possession. At some point, they were encountered by six Kumo shinobi, estimated to be at least A-rank, if not S-rank, who engaged the team. From what Shimizu and Ikeda reported, Uchiha ordered them to flee with the treaty they were carrying, but Shiroyami disobeyed and remained behind, presumably to assist Uchiha. When Shimizu and Ikeda returned, we sent two jounin to the scene, but all signs pointed to Uchiha and Shiroyami being taken by the Kumo shinobi."

"What do they know that interrogation could pull out of them?" an older jounin asked flatly.

Sakura's grandmother stood to answer the question. "Uchiha's knowledge of Uzushio is protected by a seal. Interrogation, even with something like the Yamanaka's Mind-transfer jutsu, will not be capable of forcing him to give up any information."

"And the genin?"

Mouth twisting harshly, Sakura's grandmother shook her head shortly. "She does not bear the seal."

"So she could tell them everything," someone commented, and Naruto swallowed hard. Sakura was _strong_ , even if she didn't always think so, but she was just a genin. They were supposed to learn interrogation resistance as either genin or chuunin, but Kisame-sensei hadn't even mentioned it, so he suspected Sakura didn't know anything about it either.

"She could," her grandmother acknowledged. "She has not been trained in resisting interrogation."

"Shouldn't we go get them?" Tenten called over the murmurs of the assembled shinobi at this new fact. "So she can't be forced to tell about the citadel?"

"Kumo would know about us," one of the chuunin said doubtfully. "Won't that just make matters worse?"

"Maybe we should send in an assassin," a jounin proposed coldly. "A dead shinobi can't tell anything to interrogators. And we have several S-class assassins among us."

Naruto was about to shout at the jounin when Kisame-sensei caught his eye. Slouching irritably, he grabbed Karin's elbow before she stalked across the room to injure the man. His cousin glared at him, but Naruto tipped his head towards where their jounin sensei's were standing against the wall together. She stayed put, but he could feel her bristling with anger, and Tenten, on his other side, wasn't doing much better. Looking at her briefly, Naruto could see her fingering the scrolls in her pockets, as if she was about to unleash her entire arsenal on the next person to suggest leaving Sakura there.

The discussion seemed to go on and on, shinobi weighing Uchiha and Sakura's lives as if they were deciding between kunai and shuriken. Eventually Naruto left, because it was either that or explode, and he dragged Karin and Tenten with him.

Outside, in the cool night air, Tenten slumped against the wall of what would eventually be the civilian council building, running a hand through her hair.

"We're not going to get her back, are we?" she whispered, hating every word of the admission.

Karin hauled her up by her collar, almost spitting fire. "How can you say such a thing!" she shouted, shaking the brunette roughly. "She's our _friend_!"

"Sakura wouldn't want us to get into a war with Kumo!" Tenten yelled back, finally letting some of her frustration out. "She loves Uzushio! Whatever they're doing to her...she's not going to tell them."

"So we get her back." Naruto interrupted whatever Karin was going to say, looking towards the administrative building where the debate still raged. "We go now, while everyone's busy, and we get her back."

The redhead brightened, dropping Tenten. "We could do that. I talked a lot with Shimizu and Ikeda, so I have a fair idea of how to get there."

"And what would you do then?" a voice asked, and Naruto froze as he turned to face the person who had interrupted them. "Kumo would have three more prisoners to interrogate, and one of them a jinchuuriki to boot. What good would that do?"

Sakura's grandmother appeared out of the darkness, dressed in an outfit that reminded Naruto of the ANBU who used to chase him after he had defaced the Hokage monument. There was no mask, but the sleek, dark clothing and dull grey armor was close enough.

"Aren't you supposed to be at the meeting?" Karin asked rudely, hands on her hips. "And she's your granddaughter! You're just going to leave her there to die?"

"She's a shinobi," Shiroyami-taichou murmured just loud enough for them to hear. "But I will not lose my home again. If Sakura is the price I must pay...I think she would understand."

Naruto snarled, an animalistic sound of rage that made more sense to him now that he knew about the Kyuubi, but it was Karin who reacted most dramatically, crumpling to the ground as she put her hands over her face.

"I don't want to lose her," she sobbed. "I don't want to lose Uzushio and I don't want to lose Sakura! It's not _fair_!"

"No," Sakura's grandmother admitted heavily. "No, it's not. It's not fair that all of you lost your parents, and it's not fair that you were unable to grow up in Uzushio. Before, we would have gladly demanded our shinobi back, no matter who took them. But now...now we must give, must sacrifice, in the hopes that someday we will be able to protect our shinobi again."

"We're going to get her back," Naruto said, trying for his usual cheerfulness and knowing that he was failing. But Karin was looking up at him, not crying anymore, so he felt a bit better. "Sakura-chan's smart, and the Uchiha-teme can't be that bad. They'll figure out a way to get back home, right?"

Nobody answered him, but that was okay.

He had to be right.

(He didn't know what he would do otherwise.)

* * *

Orochimaru left the meeting silently, ignoring the back and forth that raged on among the younger generations. The few veterans like him, those who had fought in both the second and the third wars, they already knew the outcome.

Uchiha Itachi and Shiroyami Sakura were the first of the resurrected Uzushio's shinobi to fall in the line of duty.

There would be no rescue, no contingent of shinobi marching through Kumo's gates prepared with subtle threats and insinuations to persuade the Raikage that it was in his best interests to release the pair. Likely, they couldn't even afford a retrieval squad for the bodies, whenever they appeared.

If they ever appeared.

Kumo would hold on to the Uchiha, seek to harness and turn his doujutsu to their purposes. Likely they would try and extend his clan, carefully screening their kunoichi in order to ensure that the sharingan was passed down to whatever offspring they managed to produce. Slowly, the Uchiha would languish in their cells until he was of no further use in the perpetuation of his clan.

Shiroyami, if she survived the interrogators, would likely die in prison. There was a slim chance that they would keep her alive, he acknowledged as he entered the research and development building that had become his home. She wasn't from a clan, had no kekkei-genkai to interfere with the transmission of a doujutsu. At the same time, she was intelligent, with excellent chakra control and training as a field medic. Shiroyami would make an adequate broodmare, if Kumo chose to test how the sharingan was transmitted.

He wasn't quite sure which fate he wished upon her.

Despite his extensive pursuit of immortality, even he could admit that there were some times where living forever was not worth it. You would wish for death, or become insane, much as the Jashinist had. In his apprentice's position, Orochimaru knew that he would be hard pressed to make a choice as to whether to fight for life, or to accept the release of death.

Yet, he could not find it in himself to be resigned about her fate. As he stood at the window, looking out towards the sea, visible only in shifting glimmers as the waves reflected the stars, he felt himself contemplating the effort a rescue would take. Far less, were it to be him, or one of the Akatsuki, who went after her, compared to a designated team from Uzushio.

But he was still bound here, serving his penance, even if the Sandaime's parting gift hadn't left him far less intimidating than he had been previously. His arms were functional for the moment, thanks to his transfer to his original body, but without ninjutsu, he was left relying on taijutsu and genjutsu.

Admittedly, Orochimaru acknowledge, his skills in both were still prodigious, but it felt unbalancing to fight without all three where lives were on the line.

Movement at his door, the slight scuff of a sandal that had become a greeting… "Yes Kabuto?"

"We're not even entertaining the thought of going after her?" his former spy asked softly from the doorway. "We're just going to let the council leave her there?"

His apprentice had inspired a bit of sentimentalism in them both. _How surprising_. "It's the most logical thing to do. She may already be dead."

Yet even as he said the words, he didn't quite _feel_ them. Shiroyami was stronger than she appeared. He had overlooked her in the Forest, so focused on the Uchiha that even the _Kyuubi jinchuuriki_ was worth minimal interest, but she had come to him, clearly still resentful and afraid and begged him to teach her genjutsu.

Just as she had begged Kabuto to teach her medical ninjutsu.

 _If she hadn't been captured by Kumo, she would have become something interesting_ , he thought.

* * *

Sakura wiped her mouth clean of vomit before sitting upright and facing Itachi, still chained to the wall with chakra restraints.

"You," she whispered hoarsely, the first time they had spoken about anything other than basic necessary arrangements since their first day in the cell. All of their other conversations had been held in the world of Tsukiyomi. "The Uchiha...they were?"

 _Planning a coup,_ she thought, but didn't dare say. Missing-nin or not, neither of them wanted to air Konoha's dirty laundry. Especially when they still couldn't identify Sakura, or where she had come from.

"Yes."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten:**

Nobody could beat Tsukiyomi.

It was fact.

Sakura had heard it whispered between nurses as they left Sasuke's room after his encounter with Itachi after the failed invasion. It had been stated by Tsunade as she woke the Uchiha from his coma, the only person to even have a chance of waking him in the entire world.

Itachi had explained to her that his use of it on her was meant to be nonlethal; that, combined with his minimal chakra, had allowed her to wake each morning, stomach rolling uncomfortably.

But she no longer wished to view his youth like a movie.

Not when it was a tragedy that she knew the end of.

So she fought.

The guards had gotten sloppy about using cuffs on her and switched to chakra suppressants, injected into her before each interrogation session. What they didn't realize was that she was a medic, capable of hastening her metabolism with even just a tiny bit of chakra at her command. It was hardly enough to use to heal her, even before each session when the suppressants had worn off, but it was enough to help her attempt to fight Tsukiyomi.

As she threw herself against his genjutsu, Itachi watched silently, only occasionally forcing her to watch certain highlights of the interactions. Hating every moment of it, she listened as Itachi grew further isolated, even from Sasuke who she now knew he had _adored_ , leaving only Shisui as his confidant.

She tried every trick that she could, every little nuance she had learned from studying with Orochimaru, even going so far as to try and raise her inner presence which had thrown out Ino during the preliminaries to the third round of the chuunin exams. All of them failed, but she wasn't going to be deterred.

Sharingan or not, Tsukiyomi was a genjutsu, which meant that there had to be a way to break it.

And thanks to Kumo, she had plenty of attempts.

* * *

The council had voted a week ago.

It was all very logical, Orochimaru knew. Their reasoning was sound, and even as he and the other Uzushio shinobi prepared for a war that they knew may come to them, depending on whether or not his apprentice broke under the merciless hands of the Kumo interrogators, he couldn't fully rationalize it.

Shiroyami Sakura and Uchiha Itachi, for all their value as shinobi of Uzushio, and all the risks of leaving them alive in the hands of Kumo's interrogators, were not to be retrieved. They were not to be rescued, they were not to be killed, their bodies were to be considered lost.

All very reasonable, all the best options available to them. If Orochimaru had bothered with probability outside of his foray into genetics, he would have been able to show that this outcome gave them the best odds.

Yet, there was something in him that could not accept the decision.

Very rarely did he choose to pursue a path that was completely unreasonable. He could probably count on both hands, maybe even one, the number of times he actively pursued that path, and nearly all of them had been prompted by Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Sarutobi.

(Seeking the Hokage's hat was one of them, but he could be forgiven a child's desperate wish for acknowledgement that turned into an adult's anger at always having to work three times as hard to get even a pittance of what others received from their fellows.)

(Killing Sarutobi was another, but that was a deep rage, an old hurt that still festered within, even as his arms were hale and whole now despite the sealing of his ninjutsu.)

Now, it seemed, he had another person to add to that list.

"You're going after her," Kabuto's voice said from the doorway, neither encouraging or judging. "Even against the council's wishes?"

Orochimaru picked up Kusanagi, sliding the sword in his sash. Going up against all of Kumo with nothing but taijutsu, kenjutsu, and genjutsu was suicidal, but he had slipped through the shadows long before many shinobi were born, and that was something that nobody could take from him. He could, and would, rescue his apprentice, the first who had actually _sought him out_ instead of being placed with him or being handpicked for his own purposes. Shiroyami had come to him out of spite, seeking to rub her distaste for the Uchiha in the man's face, but she had stayed out of genuine interest. Somewhere in those weeks that had turned to months, she had come to respect and, dare he hope, _appreciate_ him.

"You have a method of undoing the seals?" his former spy pressed, ignoring his non-answer. "I wasn't aware that you had come up with a counter."

Vaguely, Orochimaru gestured to the corner he thought of as his desk, the place where his precious scrolls of notes were stored. He had worked out a counter a month or two ago after careful examination of the seals that adorned his skin and several discussions with jounin trained in Uzushio about seals. They were simple in their construction, but the full array that restricted him to the citadel and bound the bulk of his chakra was delicate and complicated.

It was a good thing he had always been good at fiddly work.

Kabuto unrolled one of the scrolls and hummed as Orochimaru tied back his hair with a strip of leather. While he let his hair fall loose for most of his life, it had always felt more practical to bind it up and out of the way. Normally, it was a bit of a shield, a way for him to hide from the glares of those he had stood shoulder to shoulder with, but now, in order to take his apprentice back, he needed Kumo to know that they had angered one of the sannin beyond what was wise.

"These will probably work," Kabuto said after a long moment of silence. "Let me know if you need me to ink them. We should probably do so right by the gates, so they don't have time to pursue us before we make a getaway."

Turning to face the silver-haired medic, Orochimaru raised an eyebrow. "We?"

"She's my best medic," Kabuto said with a shrug. "And if she's been interrogated for the last few weeks, having the only other medic on hand when you get her out might be useful."

"It took you this long to figure out the seals?" A flat voice asked from outside the window. "You're slipping, snake."

"Akasuna," the sannin acknowledged, putting aside Kabuto's surprising show of favor towards his apprentice. "What brings you here?"

"The same reason you're gearing up as if you're about to start a war," the puppet-master said dryly. "Your apprentice is...surprisingly tolerable."

"He's been teaching her poisons," Kabuto volunteered. "I figured out of all of us, he was best suited to teach botanically based poison."

"And you, Hoshigaki?" Orochimaru asked, sensing the former Kiri shinobi outside the window behind Sasori. "Are you somehow connected to Shiroyami?"

"Someone in this little group of missing-nin ought to remember that she's not the only one Kumo has right now," the tall man grumbled. "Uchiha's a pretty decent partner; I'd rather not have to find a new one."

 _This might actually work_ , Orochimaru realized, his head already whirling through possibilities, calculating different routes towards their single goal. For the first time in a long, long while, he was not alone in his goal.

* * *

Sakura had thought she was hardened against the story of the Uchiha Massacre.

Everyone whom she had come to know through Itachi's memories was going to die. Everyone, but Sasuke, though it might have been kinder, if he had been warped and twisted from a cheerful little boy into the teenager who had sought out Orochimaru before the man had been brought to his knees by the mere thought of a _home_.

Even Uchiha Shisui, perhaps the only Uchiha to be capable of matching Itachi, and even surpassing him.

She had wondered, lying in the cell, trying to sleep, how Itachi had managed it. How her genin-sensei, who had always been so calm and collected, had brought himself to kill the cousin who was almost like another brother.

Now she didn't need to wonder.

Throwing herself against the jutsu, she refused to watch the waters of the Nakano river flow steadily away, taking their burden with them. Desperately, she struggled to break Tsukiyomi's hold, not wanting to know another moment.

Because, she had been struggling to reconcile the facts with the Itachi she had come to know through her Tsukiyomi sessions. How could this man, who had been desperately working with the Hokage, who loved the village more than anything but Sasuke, come to destroy an entire clan in one night?

Watching the younger Itachi shatter as his sharingan spun and evolved into the now familiar pattern, she had her answer.

"The sharingan, at least the mangekyo, has the ability to flawlessly memorize moments," the older Itachi said as Sakura's form slumped to the ground, her paltry amount of chakra, scrounged from hastening her metabolism of the chakra inhibitors, gone. "Even now, as I activate the mangekyo, I see the river for a brief moment."

Numbly, she watched as Itachi returned to the Uchiha compound, returned to them knowing that his best friend was dead, dead by his own hands. She watched him splinter under the interrogation, under the hostility from both sides.

She wanted to shake the elders and the Sandaime as they discussed destroying the entire Uchiha clan, even the children, in front of Itachi. How Danzo showed no shame in complaining that they had lost access to Shisui's sharingan, and its power to change the very minds of his opponents. There had been hope then, hope that the coup could be averted even if diplomatic talks failed.

The genjutsu ended just as Itachi was meeting Danzo in a secluded area, and she knew what was going to happen. There was no other way for it to progress, not with what she had seen thus far of Itachi's character, of the councilman's…

Shoving the vomit down, Sakura sat up, trembling as she dashed a lone tear away from her eyes as they locked on Itachi's, her sensei sitting placidly in his chains, and she knew now what was going on.

 _Sasuke...it was always about Sasuke. About protecting him, about giving him a way to be proud of his clan even though they would have been branded as traitors had Itachi not murdered them all. And everyone kept turning to a thirteen year old whose world was crumbling._

He met her gaze, eyes a dull black compared to the red and black she had grown accustomed to. There was no emotion in them but resignation.

Sakura had no hope that there would be a rescue for them. She had resigned herself to death by the hands of her interrogators one day when they pushed too hard, too fast. It was the price of being a shinobi, especially when she had sworn herself to a small village barely being resurrected. But her sensei, Uchiha Itachi who had been strong enough to kill his entire clan, was broken enough to accept his captivity as a punishment. A way of atoning.

 _You did nothing wrong_ , she wanted to tell him as she met his resigned eyes. _They were wrong to ask it of you, wrong to make you place one loyalty above another…_

When Itachi had begun showing her the lead up to the massacre, she had wondered why. Now, Sakura felt she had a fairly good guess. She would have to see the night of the massacre, see the inevitable meeting between Sasuke and Itachi, but she thought that she understood her sensei just a little bit better.

* * *

She was lying on the cold stone floor when the door opened, allowing bright light to shine through. Unbothered, Sakura stayed put. The guards would fetch her if it was time for her interrogation session, or the cold water of the suiton jutsus used to wash both them and the cell would crash down on her. There was no use fussing and fretting over whatever would happen.

A gentle hand touched her, and she flinched.

There had been no footsteps to announce someone's movement. While that was commonplace for shinobi, the guards didn't bother. Prisoners didn't have the ability to fight back, so what was the use of silencing your movements? Immediately, she tensed, afraid of what new tortures the interrogators might have dreamed up. She was holding on, but only because she had been able to dull her nerves, preventing her from feeling the pain they were inflicting until the moment before the medic started to heal the damage.

Much more, and she was afraid that she would break, despite her resolve.

The touch came again, the gentleness entirely foreign after the uncaring professionalism of the medics and the harsh cruelty of the interrogators. Warily, she opened her eyes, wondering if she dare dispel the genjutsu she was trapped in.

Her shishou was kneeling next to her, with something almost like concern in his eyes. "Shiroyami?" he murmured, and Sakura's heart froze.

 _They knew her name_.

Slowly, she tried to control her breathing, not letting them show they had gotten to her. Unblinking she stared back at Orochimaru, keeping her emotions pushed down as far as she could. They may know her name, know her teacher, but they may not yet know about Uzushio.

"Did they do something to her mouth?" Orochimaru asked someone over his shoulder, in the direction of her sensei, but Sakura dared not trust this not to be an incredibly detailed genjutsu. Even Itachi's Tsukiyomi, as painful as it had been to watch the events of the massacre, was kinder than this.

(She resolved that if she survived Kumo's interrogators, she would remember this feeling for her genjutsus. Fear and pain might break something, but nothing was more destructive than hope.)

"You're safe, Shiroyami. We've come for you," the snake sannin continued, reaching down to touch her again, his cool fingers gentle against her bare skin, rough and sensitive after yesterday's raiton-based interrogation and days of captivity. "Can you talk?"

Slowly, she moved out from under Orochimaru's touch and turned her back on the door, lying almost on top of her hands as she suppressed her chakra in time with curling her fingers into the release seal. " _Kai_ " she whispered, hoping that the interrogators wouldn't notice. " _Kai_."

Nothing seemed to change, and she despaired as she felt Orochimaru's touch again. This time, she took a moment to study him before turning her head aside. His seals were missing, when the clothes he was wearing should have bared the most of them to the world. It had to be a genjutsu, one she wasn't able to break.

Movement beyond Orochimaru's shoulder drew her attention, and she sucked in a breath as she saw Itachi being helped over to her by Hoshigaki Kisame. Her sensei's head turned towards her, and she flinched instinctively, expecting the red and black of the sharingan, but it was only the dull black of Itachi's natural eyes that met her own. He murmured something to Hoshigaki, and the pair turned towards her.

Scrabbling backwards, she shuffled herself away on hands and feet until the wall was at her back. Desperately, she reached for her chakra. _This can't be real_ , she screamed into the silence of her own head. _They can't be real_.

Itachi let go of Hoshigaki, falling to his knees in front of her with a painful wish, two fingers extended to tap her forehead. "It's real," he said, voice cracked and broken from disuse. "They came for us. It's not a genjutsu."

"Sensei?" she whispered, hardly daring to believe him.

"We're going home, Shiroyami," Itachi murmured, resting his forehead against her shoulder. "Home to Uzushio." HIs words were muffled against her shoulder, and she looked to Orochimaru for confirmation.

"Your other senseis are here too," he said quietly. "They've been useful in convincing the Raikage to consider a treaty with the citadel. Kabuto will want to see you as soon as he can though."

"Chakra inhibitors," she mumbled, the first sentence she had spoken since the day she had woken up in the cell. Her mouth felt dry and stiff, the words clumsy on her tongue. "Raiton yesterday."

"I see," Orochimaru nodded to Hoshigaki before moving aside so that the bigger man could carefully pick Itachi up, half carrying him as the dark haired man slumped against his former partner. Sakura found herself being scooped up in the snake sannin's arms as he carried her out of the cell, bypassing the interrogators with a sneer as he headed down the hallway as if he knew where he was going.

"Rest," he advised, shifting her so that one hand could cover her eyes. "We're going to get you situated in a hotel, and then we'll see about patching you back up."

* * *

When she woke up again, she was tucked into a comfortable futon in what appeared to be a hotel.

Groggily, Sakura pushed herself upright, reveling in the softness of the covers around her and the light colors of the room itself. She was alone, which caused a momentary panic before she felt the chakra signatures on the other side of the door.

As it opened, she looked up, only to find Kabuto standing there, slight smile on his face. "If you hadn't survived this, I would have resurrected you to kill you myself," he informed her as he crossed the room to kneel next to her. "Don't move; I'd like to see how my healing held."

Obediently, she held still as he ran his hands, coated in green colored chakra, over her. As he withdrew, he had a satisfied look on his face. "Your nerves were starting to look a bit frayed. I did what I could for them, but you'll have to let them recover on their own. No disconnecting them for at least a week."

At her puzzled look, he smirked. "What, you thought I wouldn't be able to tell how you managed to withstand torture for this long?"

"Why…" she croaked, before slamming her mouth shut. There was no way she was going to be able to communicate until she had something to drink.

Reaching for a pitcher of water resting nearby, Kabuto poured a small amount into a cup and handed it carefully to her. "Not too much now. They did an...adequate job of keeping you from starvation and dehydration, but you'll need to slowly work your way up to proper meals. Do you feel up for a bath, or do you want to sleep more?"

Sakura wrinkled her nose. She was still in her prison scrubs, and the very mention of a bath was enough to drive all thoughts of sleep out of her mind. "Bath," she tried, and emboldened with her success, she tried again to voice her original question. "Why did you come?"

"Did you really think that we were going to just let you stay there?" Kabuto said, straightening up. "You have more allies than you think, and let's just say the Raikage was rather receptive to a trade treaty with the citadel when it was offered by a trio of S-ranked missing-nin. The bathroom is through the door on the left. Someone will be in the other room, but if you're in there for too long without making noise we'll come check on you."

* * *

When she was finished scrubbing her skin of every last bit of prison grime, Sakura lowered herself into the warm bath with a sigh. It was so wonderful just to be _warm_ and _clean_ that she would never take it for granted again.

She's pruny and pink all over by the time the water starts to cool and she gets reluctantly out, but her towel's been strategically placed by the heater, so it's warm and fluffy as she wraps it around herself and heads to stand in front of the mirror.

Living in Uzushio was probably the best way to lose weight while still maintaining proper nutrient intake and preventing devastating calorie deficits. While they never went hungry, and always had enough to eat, they never had _more_. There were no sweets, no little extras to nibble on without thinking. Her excess fat had slowly faded away, replaced by muscle gained from long days of rebuilding, and then days of rebuilding and training. Some of that had withered now, muscle tone lost to her weeks of captivity, a victim of life in a prison cell, much like how her previously tanned skin had turned porcelain white without hours of working in the sun to maintain it.

Sakura catalogued the changes mentally, starting from her toes and rising to the top of her head, counting hollows that weren't there before, even as she skipped her eyes, afraid of what they might reveal. This still didn't feel real, even though she had felt Kabuto's chakra scanning her system, run the water in her shower so hot that it was almost scalding, just to prove to herself that it wasn't a genjutsu.

Leaning in closer to the mirror, she studied the roots of her hair. Somehow...they almost looked _blonde_. Like, _Ino_ blonde, not _Naruto_ blond, or the pink they had always been. Startled, she poked cautiously at the hairs.

They _felt_ like hair. Looked like hair, felt like hair, smelled like the shampoo she had just used…

But now she was blonde.

Unsettled, she picked up the comb and began to work the snarls out of her hair. Kabuto might know, or Orochimaru. There had to be something about this documented in medical or scientific literature.

* * *

When she emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in the warm yukata that had been laid out for her, Kabuto was waiting. Giving her an approving nod, he gestured to the only other door in the room, which was standing open now.

The adjacent room seemed to be more of a common area, with a low table in the center, and a couch up against the wall. Hoshigaki and Itachi were seated around the table, which had food already set out on it. Itachi motioned for her to join them, and she slowly made her way over, brow furrowing as he coughed heavily into the sleeve of his yukata.

"I'm fine Shiroyami," Itachi murmured as the coughs subsided. "Don't fret."

"You _will_ be fine," Kabuto corrected grouchily as he took his own seat. "Left untreated, that _simple cough_ would have become a respiratory illness that could have killed you. Your lungs are vulnerable, Uchiha. Nothing that would keep you from active duty, so long as you seek _proper_ medical attention when you have a respiratory infection."

Sakura was about to protest the irritableness of his tone when she remembered Kimimaro, whose slow journey towards death had begun with a respiratory illness. She couldn't blame Kabuto for being a little overly sensitive, since Kimimaro's death should have theoretically been preventable.

Itachi only nodded his head gracefully and picked up his chopsticks. Following his example, Sakura looked at the choices in front of her.

 _Invalid food_ , she thought with a grimace, but helped herself to a few of the dishes. All of it made specifically for systems recovering from low calorie intake. None of it was particularly appetizing, but she didn't fancy spending the rest of her day hugging the toilet bowl as her stomach reminded her why this diet was necessary.

Kabuto snickered, and she shifted so she could elbow him in the ribs before pasting a smile on her face and heaping his dish with a serving of rice porridge.

It still didn't feel real, being able to sit and converse freely like this, or at least as freely as shinobi ever did outside of their homes, but Sakura felt like she could get used to it, could remember how to live life outside a prison cell. Kumo had held her captive and tortured her for less than a month, but it had seemed like a year. Experiences like that left a mark, no matter how hard you tried to forget them.

 _But_ , she thought, looking around the table. _I have my senseis, my shishou, and my friends waiting for me back home. I can get through this._


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven:**

They stayed in Kumo for a week after the others arrived to rescue Sakura and Itachi.

Sakura spent most of that week confined to the hotel, resting and talking with whomever wasn't negotiating with the Raikage and his council. Itachi was her almost constant companion, but she felt wary of talking about what had passed between them in the realm Tsukiyomi had created.

It still felt unreal, being out of her cell. Multiple times a day, she caught herself attempting to release a genjutsu. She found herself touching everything around her, trying to memorize the textures and sensations for when reality returned and she was surrounded by cold, impersonal stone. Talking, actually using her vocal chords and speaking with another person, was even odder. Responding to questions that were asked, even more so.

The day they left Kumo, she joined the others in the Raikage's office, dressed in shinobi clothing that someone had picked out for her. It was simple, just a blue kimono shirt and black shinobi pants, along with standard black sandals, but her hitai-ite was tied around her forehead, Uzushio's spiral declaring her allegiance to the world.

She stood quietly just behind Orochimaru's left elbow, Kabuto next to her on his right. Sasori, Kisame, and Itachi stood even with Orochimaru, who was tucking the treaty in his weapons pouch.

"It has been a pleasure negotiating with you, Raikage-sama," he said smoothly, bowing politely. "We regret the unfortunate circumstances that brought us together more rapidly than we had expected, but I am glad we have been able to move past this and look towards the future."

With a roll of his eyes, the Raikage snorted. "So you learned something at the Sandaime's elbow after all," he muttered, and then his eyes fell on Sakura. "Kunoichi, you're the genin my interrogators have been telling me about?"

After a quick look at her shishou for permission, Sakura bowed as she murmured: "Hai, Raikage-sama."

"You're pretty tough for a genin. I'll be interested to see how your career progresses."

A few more pleasantries were exchanged, and then they were led out of the office and escorted to the gates by a man that looked a bit like the Raikage and two other Kumo-nin. None of them said anything until they reached the gate, where one of their escorts detached himself from the group and went to talk with the gate guards.

"Yo, it's going to be neat," the big man with sunglasses and a bandanna said, flashing them a big grin. "Got me another jinchuuriki to meet."

"Your Raikage was very generous in lending your experience with the biju to help train our jinchuuriki," Orochimaru said coolly. "We will send word when we are ready to begin his training."

"Best be off then," the man crowed as the other escort returned. "Just give me a shout when!"

Instead of answering, Orochimaru signaled them to take to the trees.

* * *

They were about a day's run from the coast, two days from Kumo at the pace they had taken to accommodate Sakura and Itachi's diminished fitness, when she finally asked the question that had been bothering her ever since they took her from the cell.

"I thought nobody would come."

Kabuto exchanged glances with Kisame before returning to starting the fire. Sasori stared flatly back at her, but it was fairly difficult to get any expression change from him. Only Orochimaru met her gaze squarely.

"We were ordered not to," he said, carefully inspecting the sword that had been hanging from his sash ever since Sakura had seen him in the cell. "You were declared lost in action. The citadel has been preparing for war."

"Everyone was afraid that they would torture the location out of me," Sakura said, fighting to keep her voice from quavering. "Weren't they?"

"It was accepted that they would," Sasori replied offhandedly as he adjusted one of his joints. "Genin, even prodigies, are rarely able to withstand determined interrogation for a week and a half, which was how long you had been gone when they confirmed that you were likely being held by Kumo."

Now did not seem to be an appropriate time to mention how close she had come to breaking, in those early days before she had resigned herself to being left to the mercy of Kumo's interrogators, before she had managed to cut her nerves and keep from feeling the pain they were inflicting.

"So, how did you get permission to leave?"

Kisame started whistling idly as he averted his eyes, Kabuto snickered, and Sasori remained unbothered. Orochimaru was finally the one to sigh and say: "We...decided to test the old adage about permission and forgiveness."

Sakura goggled at them. "You _broke out_ of the citadel, just to rescue us?" she whispered incredulously. That they would want to rescue her, and Itachi, was puzzling, but understandable when viewed through the lens of Uzushio's current shortage of shinobi and shinobi in training, and the fact that she could have revealed their location to Kumo.

That they would _go against orders_ and risk losing their only safe place, their only _home_ , for her sake…

It touched her heart.

"Here's hoping the peace treaty with Kumo is enough to make them forget that little detail," Kisame grunted, checking the wrappings on his sword. "I was just getting used to not being a missing-nin."

Kabuto snorted. "You'd miss your brats."

"No way," Kisame replied defensively. "That blond brat maybe, because he's going to be a goddam _tank_ once he's fully trained, but being a teacher? Not on your life."

"That's practically a confession of attachment, coming from you Kisame," Itachi added from where he was helping Kabuto prepare that night's meal.

* * *

The sight of the citadel walls rising up in front of them nearly made Sakura cry.

They had used the river as a road to make best time on their return to Uzushio, getting them there around midafternoon. As they approached the gates, still empty, since as far as Sakura knew, they hadn't been able to get a shipment of wood into the citadel to build gates, she managed to compose herself.

A string of shinobi was strung out across the opening, and Sakura felt a tremor of nervousness slide through her. Her grandmother was there, along with the rest of the council and several other jounin. None of them looked particularly friendly; though strong disapproval seemed to be the worst that she saw.

"Orochimaru. Akasuna Sasori. Hoshigaki Kisame. Yakushi Kabuto." The eldest member of the council stepped forward, leaning on his walking stick. "You have broken your vows to the citadel."

"We have," Orochimaru acknowledged, kneeling on the stony walkway before the gates. "I cannot speak for the others, but I could not let my apprentice languish when there was something that I could do."

The others knelt, saying similar things, leaving Sakura and Itachi the only members of the returning party left standing. Feeling awkward, she looked for Naruto and the others of her generation, but they were absent.

"We have already extended you our trust once before, and you have broken it. What can you say in your defense that will allow us to extend it again?"

"Nothing," Orochimaru admitted, and Sakura knew there was nothing but raw honesty in her mentor's voice. "You would be right to turn us away. The council made its decision for the good of the citadel, and we gambled that decision on our own reading of the situation. But we brought back Uchiha Itachi and Shiroyami Sakura, and in the process, we negotiated a peace treaty with Kumogakure. It bears the Raikage's signature, and is in effect as soon as the council ratifies it."

At this news, Sakura saw interest on several of the council members faces. "Explain." The command came from her grandmother, who was looking at the snake sannin with suspiscion.

"We approached him, threatening an attack on Kumogakure if he would not agree to treaty negotiations and the release of two of our shinobi," Sasori said coolly. "Our reputations and abilities are well known. Faced with three S-ranked missing-nin, the Raikage felt it was in his best interest to at least hear our proposed terms."

"The short version of these terms?" Another of the council members was pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger as she spoke.

"Mutal non-aggression, mutual defense, sea trade agreements, and jinchuuriki training." Kabuto rattled off the list with ease. "If you would like, I could give you the treaty?"

Sakura watched her grandmother trade cautious looks with the rest of the council. "We convene in the council room in an hour. Understand that you are being allowed into the citadel simply so that we can discuss your actions. This is not a pardon; you may be asked to leave once we have heard your tale. Uchiha, Shiroyami, please report to the Head Medic at the hospital for a physical before reporting to the council room for a debriefing."

Bowing, Sakura, followed Itachi up the path into the citadel, drawing in a ragged breath as the sensation of _home_ surrounded her. Civilians watched from the first and second circles as the pair made their way to the hospital, neither of them saying a word.

One of the civilian nurses met them there, looking flustered. "Uchiha-san, Shiroyami-san, how can I help you?"

"We've been sent for physicals," Sakura said smoothly. "I'll be in room 101, and Uchiha-sensei will be in room 102. The council would like to debrief us before the hour is up, so all haste would be preferred if at all possible."

Without another word, she guided Itachi towards the set of examination rooms lined up against the back wall of the mostly open first floor of the hospital. As she expected, they were mostly empty and without doors, but she gestured Itachi into his before taking a seat on the floor in hers.

The nurse was back in a moment, a clipboard in her hands. "I'll try to make this as quick as possible, Shiroyami-san," she fussed, reaching for Sakura's wrist. "Please bear with me."

"Of course," Sakura murmured, trying to keep herself focused. The stone walls of the hospital were nothing like the walls of Kumo's interrogation department, but it was hard to drive the images away from her mind. Carefully, she controlled her breathing, keeping her heart rate steady and her breathing even while the nurse made short, quick notes about her findings. WIth a kind smile, she told Sakura that she was finished, and that if she wished, she could wait here until she was finished with Uchiha-san.

Distractedly nodding, Sakura dug her fingers into her thighs, letting the sensation, the discomfort that was so different from the pain she had felt in Kumo's cells, ground her in reality. This was _real_. She was home, in Uzushio, and Kumo would not be coming after her. There would be no more visions of the horrors in her sensei's life, no further torture for information she refused to give. Sakura would not have to lie in her cell and attempt to think of foolproof ways to commit suicide before they managed to break her.

A shape filled the doorway, and Sakura flinched instinctively.

It was only Itachi, and he politely ignored how her heart rate and breathing had sped up noticeably. "If you are ready, Shiroyami?"

"Yeah," she said, pushing herself upright, moving her wrists more than she would have normally just to prove to herself that they were unbound, flaring her chakra lightly to prove that she was undrugged. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

The debriefing was fairly tame. Most of the first part, when they encountered the Kumo shinobi in Frost, went unquestioned, likely because it had already been reviewed when Ikeda and Shimizu brought word of their capture. Itachi spoke briefly on their transport to Kumo, and the short while in the cell when she had been asleep. And then it was her turn.

Standing, with her hands behind her back, staring at a point on the wall behind the council's heads, she recited the list of ways the Kumo shinobi had come up with to torture her. Devoid of as much emotion as she could, she described how they alternated between kindness and cruelty, offering her everything but her freedom in exchange for her breaking her silence. How they offered to trade her a proper shower for her _name_.

Sakura was proud of herself for not pausing, not letting her voice break as she described the rotation between elements, the day they tried hallucinogens, how each night they had dragged her before Itachi and made her look into the mangekyo sharingan.

Itachi interspersed some comments on his own captivity, how they had tried to get information from him during the first days until they realized that he bore a seal that prevented him from releasing any information that they would find useful. After that, his life was slowly passing hours, broken only by Sakura's own movements.

"What did you see in Tsukiyomi?" one of the council members asked curiously.

"Uchiha-sensei's childhood," Sakura stated flatly. Whether or not Itachi had told them the truth of the massacre, she would not spread the truth around without express permission from Itachi himself.

"And then the sannin Orochimaru and Hoshigaki arrived?" Sakura's grandmother prompted, breaking the stiff silence that had fallen after Sakura's curt answer.

"Hai. They entered the cell and Hoshigaki released me," Itachi answered. "Orochimaru went to Shiroyami, who attempted to dispel genjutsu and would not relax until I assured her that it was truly happening."

"How did you spend the remaining days in Kumo?"

"We were taken to a hotel and kept within the hotel's grounds. I was being treated for a respiratory infection that I had picked up during my incarceration, and Shiroyami was being treated for the aftereffects of her torture. On our last day, we were escorted to the Raikage's office for a brief audience before the Hachibi's jinchuuriki and two others escorted us to the gates."

"Thank you Uchiha, Shiroyami. We will debrief each of you more extensively, but there are other matters we need to attend to first. Consider yourself on leave until further notice, and restricted to the citadel."

Bowing, Sakura turned and trailed behind Itachi as he led the way out of the room. Her shishou and the rest of their rescuers were there, calmly waiting for their turn to be debriefed.

She paused in front of Orochimaru and bowed. "Thank you, shishou."

As he moved to enter the council room, he briefly rested a hand on her head. "I would not abandon my apprentice, not one who sought me out as you did."

Sweeping past her, he entered the room, Hoshigaki, Sasori, and Kabuto following behind him. One of the chuunin on duty closed the door, and Sakura was left in the outer chamber with Itachi.

All of the sudden, noise bubbled up from the stairwell, a familiar voice shouting to be heard over the rest: "You are not going to stop me from seeing her, or I'm going to bring this goddamn wall down around your ears, so help me-!"

"Uzumaki-san, you were warned about using seals-"

"My friend practically just returned from the dead and you're in my way. Do you want to test how much I care about _warnings_?"

"No need for your seals, Karin," Tenten's voice drifted up the stairs in the sudden lull in sound following the redhead's threat. "I'll just pin him to the wall."

"D'you think he'd stand a chance against a bunch of kage bunshin?" Naruto wondered loudly.

"Sounds like you had best get down there before we're short a chuunin," Itachi murmured with a slight chuckle. "I wouldn't put it past that group to actually carry through on some of these threats."

Flashing him a quick smile, Sakura darted down the stairs.

Busy arguing with the chuunin posted on the ground floor, preventing people from eavesdropping on the council debriefings, Karin had her hands on her hips and her furious face in the chuunin's flustered one, finger almost up his nose with how close it was to him as she lectured him. Naruto was directly behind her, normally sunny disposition gone, but it was Tenten, leaning against the wall and casually cleaning underneath her fingernails with a kunai who saw Sakura first.

Using Naruto's shoulders as a springboard, the brunette launched herself over the poor chuunin's head and almost bowled Sakura over as she wrapped her in a hug. Scuffling at the bottom of the stairs suggested that the chuunin guard had given up, because soon two other pairs of arms wrapped around her, the outpouring of affection practically smothering Sakura as she teetered on the stairs, relying on her chakra to keep her stable.

"Don't you _ever_ do something like this again," Karin mumbled somewhere near Sakura's shoulder. "You don't get to go off and get yourself captured and marked as unrecoverable or I'm going to pester your shishou until he teaches me that resurrection jutsu and _kill you myself_."

"Seconded," Tenten agreed, drawing back slightly to study Sakura with suspiciously watery eyes.

"I'm not going to kill you myself," Naruto sniffed, hugging her tighter. "But I bet my mom would make sure you never got to rest."

Leaning into their hugs, Sakura felt something settle. She was home, and she was safe. Logically, she knew that there would be rough days ahead of her as she struggled to overcome the effects of weeks of torture on both her body and her mind, but she had her support network.

She could make it through this.

* * *

Sakura flung herself upright, throat hoarse as she gasped for breath. Strong hands pressed her back down, and she struggled to pull herself free, fighting wildly. Bucking and squirming, she almost slid free, but the hands caught her, changing to arms that pulled her against a human chest.

The shock of her skin brushing someone else's shook her from the blind panic, allowed her to think beyond the instinctive litany of _danger-flee-not safe_ that had controlled her entire being. Stilling her movements, she twisted her head, blinking until the face of the person holding her resolved itself into recognizable features in the dim moonlight pouring in from the window.

"Sorry shishou," she murmured sheepishly. "I had another nightmare, I think."

"Obviously," he answered, but there was no real bite behind his words.

His arms loosened, allowing her to slip out of his restraining hold, likely to keep her from injuring either herself or him, and back into the rumpled bedroll she had vacated in the panic of waking. It was a nightly routine for them these days, waking in the middle of the night due to her nightmares. They were slowly ceasing, but not enough for her to consider returning to the room she had shared with Tenten and Karin.

"Show me," the snake sannin ordered, and Sakura obeyed, calling her chakra as she slid through the hand seals, focusing her entire will and imagination on what she was about to project.

Genjutsu had started to come instinctively to her now, after night after night of her shishou ordering her to show him what her night terrors had crafted for her. He usually waved her attempts off, but he had noted that she was making progress.

"I am not a Yamanaka, with the ability to reach into your mind and read your fears and secrets," he had told her, the first night since she had moved into his quarters, the second night she had been back in Uzushio. "Nor am I particularly equipped to deal with emotions and emotional responses to trauma. The Sandaime and my teammates often despaired of this, and I have gotten no more adept at comfort since I parted ways with them. But I can offer you what I know that may help ease your mind."

"You are getting better and shaping the target's emotions," he informed her as he brushed aside her genjutsu in the same manner as she had seen him brush aside cobwebs. "The emotional responses you were attempting to provoke were logical and within your reach. Most chuunin are not able to cast this level of genjutsu; though some may be able to withstand the sheer blatancy of it, especially if they have previously overcome similar circumstances. But remember how this feels, because you should be able to incorporate it into genjutsus where your targets are already snared."

"Hai, shishou," Sakura said tiredly, leaning back against the wall. "Itachi-sensei noted that I had gotten better at timing my applications during combat scenarios."

"The problem with genjutsus," Orochimaru mused as he returned to the scrolls he had presumably set aside when her nightmare became evident, "is that they are difficult to test on your allies, and dangerous to test on your enemies. Ninjutsu leave visable signs of progress, and your allies likely will not begrudge you a few bruises from taijutsu practice. But genjutsu, due to its very nature, is almost taboo to cast on anyone but an enemy."

Sakura grimaced. "I only use area of effect ones on my teammates." They had sat down and worked out a list of acceptable and unacceptable genjutsus for team practices, which had been supremely awkward, since none of them had dared discuss what had happened on their last outside mission yet. She suspected that it would be something Itachi would make them face eventually, but her sensei seemed to be more focused on reclaiming their lost conditioning and stagnated skills for the time being.

"Have you considered what your specialty might be?" he inquired idly, picking up one of the scrolls. "Kabuto said that you had chosen to not pursue medical ninjutsus beyond what you have already learned, though you'll finish your studies in poisons with Sasori."

"My time in Kumo suggested one to me." It was something Sakura hadn't mentioned to anyone else, because they'd probably try to talk her out of it, but the idea continued to niggle away at her.

"Black ops?"

"How did you know?"

Orochimaru sighed lightly. "Most of the jounin are thinking about it, even if they haven't said anything. You lasted weeks in the hands of Kumo's interrogators with nothing but scraps of chakra, and managed to resist physical and mental torture without even giving up your name, and you're just a genin. In Konoha, ANBU would be scouting you after you passed your chuunin exams."

"My medical ninjutsu helped," Sakura pointed out, the same way she did whenever anyone mentioned how prodigious her feat had been. "And Itachi-sensei was as kind as he could have been with Tsukiyomi, under the circumstances."

"Even that opened up a number of interesting questions," the snake sannin countered. "Would training all vulnerable operatives in the basics of medical ninjutsu extend the amount of torture it would take for them to break? Would it be better, although it's a violation of their rights, to equip all shinobi with a seal preventing them from speaking under duress? You've become interesting to a number of people for a number of reasons."

"It's not just that I survived all that without opening my mouth," she said, preparing to spill the one secret she hadn't been able to tell to anyone else yet. "It's that I knew that nobody would come for me, and I accepted it without thinking. You can't always rescue black ops the way you should try to rescue regular squads. Sometimes you can't even claim the black ops member. Naruto wouldn't be able to do it. Tenten might, same with Suigetsu, but Juugo? Karin? They're too hopeful. They wouldn't be able to accept it and bounce back in a reasonable time frame."

"And it will be from your generation that the first black ops members are recruited from, even though we're small and will not need many," her shishou completed the thought with a nod. "You're at the top of most lists for recruitment."

"Teach me," Sakura asked, hands clenching on her knees as she refused to bow her head, even as she asked for yet another favor. "Teach me what I need to know to be able to live long enough to come home and how to make sure that it doesn't break me in the process."

"Just to be clear," he set down the scroll he was looking at and looked her straight in the eye. "You want to learn how to be an assassin?"

"So that none of my other yearmates will have to go through what I do."

"We start in the morning," her shishou replied, making no comment about her audacity to ask even more from him. "And I will be having a few words with Uchiha so that he understands what I will be teaching you."

"If you think that's necessary," Sakura said, releasing the breath that she had unconsciously been holding. "Thank you shishou."

"Don't thank me for this." His eyes were cold as they studied her. "Black ops is not a division to enter lightly. Training a genin with the express purpose of shaping her into black ops goes against many of the principles Konoha attempted to instill in me. There is a reason eyebrows were raised at Uchiha and Hatake's recruitment young, and perhaps they were right. For your sake…" he trailed off for a moment, hesitating, before he finally continued. "I hope that they do not recruit for black ops before you have had many years as a jounin."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve:**

One week after she and Itachi had returned from Kumo, they were put back on active duty.

It had been an...awkward reunion with Shimizu and Ikeda. The latter had been uncomfortably quiet, and Shimizu tended to be even quieter than usual. Their teamwork was fairly smooth, as they worked on the standard genin missions within the citadel, but the disaster that had been their last mission hung between them.

She hadn't talked with Itachi yet about what he had shown her in Tsukiyomi. The truth behind the massacre lay between them, but she was okay with his silence for the moment. It was too much to take in, knowing that the massacre of an entire clan had been sanctioned by one of the elders of Konoha, capitalizing on Itachi's personal distress.

Sakura had been there, the night Uchiha Shisui drowned. She had listened to him tell Itachi about what Danzo had done, what Danzo had planned to do, and she had watched him step over the cliff. Unable to help, she had watched Itachi's younger self reach out and try to stop him, try to pull him back before it was too late. His sharingan had changed, had evolved, and she watched something that had been winding increasingly tighter within Itachi snap.

As his younger self stared into the waters of the Nakano which had borne Shisui away, she saw a gaping emptiness, filled only by an even deeper grief. The same emptiness she had seen in his eyes, the few times she had dared look, during their stay in Kumo's cells.

Once, she had read a story where the villain had nothing left to lose. She hadn't understood the significance at the time, although it had made a bit more sense after seeing Zabuza and Haku. But thirteen year old Itachi, with only Sasuke left to protect...what he had done was terrible, but _it had been sanctioned_.

The worst of it was that it had made sense. Danzo's words had only underlined the growing tension between the Uchiha and Konoha, the failed peace talks with the Hokage. A coup attempt was _going to happen_ , now that Shisui's sharingan was unable to attempt to wrest control of the clan's elders.

Having seen every moment of the path to the massacre, Sakura knew that it was entirely plausible that Itachi be set against his own clan by the village elders. Having the order be given for the entire clan...it seemed rational, even if a bit extreme.

When Itachi reported to the Sandaime, only to hear that such an order had never been issued by anyone other than Danzo, Sakura felt as if she had been sucker punched. All of the heartache that Sasuke, Itachi, and Shisui had undergone, were still undergoing, had been for nothing but one old man's selfish desire.

"Danzo?" her shishou went very still when Sakura mentioned the name casually one night as they were both reading. "What do you wish to know about Shimura Danzo?"

"I know he's a member of the Council of Elders in Konoha," Sakura continued. "And that he was one of Sarutobi-sama's teammates. So I figured that you might know about him."

"Stay as far from that man as you can," Orochimaru hissed, a strange light in his eyes. "He knows no limits, bows to no authority but his own, and has no honor, even for a shinobi. Even as he shakes your hand, he will stab you from behind."

As she stayed silent, curious about what interaction Orochimaru must have had to bring out such a strong reaction, the snake sannin turned to look at her, mouth twisted into a grimace. "You said Uchiha showed you his youth in Tsukiyomi, did you not?"

At her nod, he continued: "The same youth in which he murdered his entire clan?"

Letting loose a long sigh at her second nod, Orochimaru absentmindedly brushed away a long strand of hair that had fallen loose from his bun during the day. "I had wondered what possessed the boy to do such a deed. When I knew him...he was certainly skilled, but hardly the type to commit mass murder. But if you come to me, having seen the events through Uchiha's eyes, and are asking about Shimura Danzo, I can only assume that he has been meddling in Konoha's affairs again."

"Does his influence extend to reach us here?"

"His spies will not be able to seek us out behind the citadel walls," Orochimaru stated coldly. "And if they do, we will simply have to turn his own tactics against him. Preferably, I would return them to him in pieces, but that would be far too unsatisfying."

* * *

Refusing to tell her anything about his own run-in with Danzo, Orochimaru drove her relentlessly through learning the skills that would make her a successful candidate for black ops.

"Right now we have little need for new members," he told her as she worked on suppressing her chakra so that she would be practically undetectable. "Kakuzu and Hidan are sufficient, with the rest of Akatsuki to be drafted as necessary. From what is discussed at the jounin level meetings, the plan is to place most of our shinobi intake into the main ranks because of the shortage of qualified shinobi. You and your yearmates will be kept as chuunin and jounin and only specialized when absolutely necessary as the older shinobi begin to retire. There is a chuunin examination tentatively planned in the next three months, so that is our goal for the moment."

He and Itachi had to have conspired, because Itachi was working with her on taijutsu, showing her ways to use her smaller size and muscle mass to her advantage. She was given a new conditioning plan, focusing on speed rather than strength, and Orochimaru walked her through the basics of Tsunade's chakra-enhanced strength one afternoon.

"You do not need to master this," he said, watching as she tried to crush a stone with her bare hand. "But it will lend you an advantage in situations with close combat. Combined with genjutsus, you should be capable of at least getting away, if not subduing your opponent."

Itachi had told her that it was too close to the chuunin examinations for him to consider teaching her a weapon outside of the main shinobi arsenal of kunai, shuriken, and senbon, but if she wished to learn kenjutsu in the future he would be willing to teach her if Orochimaru was not.

* * *

Three weeks after her return from Kumo, a ship docked in the newly reconstructed port.

All of the genin teams had been pulled off their normal duties for three days to help reconstruct the docks and various buildings related to the bureaucracy of running a shipping stop. The sentries at the southern end of the island had reported a ship coming by bearing the plain blue flag that signified it was an allied ship.

Gathered in the square outside the administration building, Sakura and the other genin eagerly anticipated the afternoon assignments. From what the older shinobi had said, at least one team would be needed to guide the ship into port, since the entrance to the harbor was treacherous without knowledge of where the rocks lurked underwater; Uzushio's natural defense from attacks by sea. It was for that reason that Kiri had required the assistance of their Uzushio-descended sealing team, because at least one of them had retained the knowledge of how to navigate safely into the harbor.

"Team 1 and Team 4, you're paired with Maeda on duty in the harbor. Team 5, you're assisting the bureaucrats at the docks, and Teams 2 and 3 are on standby once we know what they need," Konan called, having stopped spending most of her time in the hospital with Nagato sometime during Sakura's stay with Kumo and started helping out the council. "Let's get moving."

Joining her teammates and Naruto's team, Sakura looked for Itachi and Hoshigaki-sensei, who was fairly easy to see in a crowd, even with most of the shinobi and civilian population flooding into the square in anticipation of the ship docking. Spotting them, she grabbed Naruto's arm and started towing him over in their direction, elbowing Ikeda as she went, since he was looking in the opposite direction.

Itachi and Hoshigaki met them halfway, another jounin with them. "Maeda-san, I don't think you've had a chance to work with our genin? Team 1 is Shimizu, Ikeda, and Shiroyami," the Uchiha introduced, pointing them out briefly. "And Team 4 consists of…"

"Uzumaki, Minami, and Yamada," Hoshigaki finished, shooting a quelling look at Naruto. "Now, listen up brats, because if we mess this up I might drown you myself and save the council the time."

Naruto stuck his tongue out at Hoshigaki, but the jounin ignored it.

"We're going to go down to the water and I'm going to station you at certain points. Your job is going to be to guide the ship between you and your partner, ensuring that they don't run afoul of anything lurking under the surface. Once they've passed you, follow them into the docks and help moor them." Maeda grinned at them. "I hope you're good with water walking, or else you better be a good swimmer!"

"Pairs are Ikeda and Minami, Uzumaki and Shimizu, and Yamada and Shiroyami," Hoshigaki contributed. "Now, last one down to the docks is scrubbing tonight's dishes."

Sakura bolted with the other genin, Naruto well in the lead already. She figured that he would win, given his jinchuuriki-gifted stamina, but there was nothing saying she couldn't aim for second place.

It was a close contest, but she beat out Yamada as she came to a stop on the edge of the docks, only to find the three jounin already standing on the water.

"Shunshin," Sakura muttered irritably, glaring at Itachi who shrugged and turned his attention to the rest of the arriving genin. He had told her that if she wanted to learn things, she should let him and Orochimaru handle her training schedule, since they had a wealth of experience between them to draw upon.

 _We'll see what they say after I've worked out Shunshin simply from my memories of Shisui teaching Itachi_ , she grouched internally as she stepped onto the water with the rest of the genin, keeping pace with Yamada. They trailed dutifully after their three jounin escorts, with Ikeda and Minami being dropped off at the first critical point, the gap between the low barrier of rocks that encircled the harbor and was practically invisible half the time, then Naruto and Shimizu marking one part of the path, and Sakura and Yamada after that. Itachi and Hoshigaki were at the beginning of the underwater maze that prevented a fleet from sneaking up on the citadel without inside knowledge.

"Remember," Maeda called as he waved to catch the incoming ship's attention. "Once we've passed you, follow us in and prepare to help moor the ship."

"Anyone who goes underwater is running their laps for the next month!" Hoshigaki bellowed, but Sakura was intrigued. She had taken to running laps of the full citadel, using the roads that had been laid out as her path, but once more buildings were erected, and more residents came to the citadel it would become increasingly difficult. Running on the water would work on her chakra control, and her stamina…

"Here we go!" Maeda called as he launched himself up onto the ship. Itachi and Hoshigaki flanked the ship as it passed them, running easily alongside it as they guided it towards Sakura and Yamada. Suppressing a giggle as she noticed how soaked her sensei was from the seaspray, Sakura fell in behind Itachi, following him as they moved closer to the harbor. Already, she could see the crowds forming, civilians and shinobi, citadel residents and those from the closer villages and farms come to see the first ship to enter the harbor since the citadel's fall.

Above her, on the ship, she heard a familiar voice. "Told you I'd come see you Naruto!"

"Hey, it's old man Tazuna and Inari!" the blond shouted back from the other side of the ship. "Isn't my home cool?"

Sakura missed the rest of the conversation, since Itachi and Maeda were demonstrating how to bring the ship safely into the docks now that they had entered the harbor proper. Catching the rope that was thrown to her, she kept her pace steady as the ship slowed, deckhands furling its sails as they approached the docks. Itachi led, taking his rope all the way down to the mooring cleat closest to the end of the shore. Sakura stopped at the next one, feeling the tension on the rope as she worked to secure the ship so that the goods and crew could disembark promptly.

She _was_ interested to hear how Tsunami and Tazuna had been doing.

As the crew was lowering the gangplank, Tenten, Juugo, and Kyo arrived with the bureaucrats. Maeda was first off the ship, followed by Tazuna and Inari, with a man who looked as if he could be the ship's captain trailing behind.

"Welcome to Uzushio," the recently appointed harbormaster, a burly man whose parents had been civilians who fled just before the citadel was besieged, said warmly. "We're happy to find friends in Wave."

"It's about time the major countries remembered that the small ones shouldn't just be trampled over," Tazuna said. "We were lucky that Konoha's shinobi helped free Wave from Gato. We had nobody else to turn to."

"Uzushio will always answer your call," the second bureaucrat, one of the female council members said with a bow. "Have you chosen an ambassador to represent your interests?"

"Suzuki-san is below, gathering his things," Tazuna said with a grimace. "He had bad sea sickness all the way here, so he's moving a little slowly. I'm Tazuna, bridge builder and carpenter, and this is my grandson Inari. We're here to help in whatever way you need."

Inari waved to Sakura, no longer the crying boy she remembered, but bright and full of hope. She waved back, and then moved to stand by Itachi with the rest of her team.

Naruto was practically vibrating where he stood, with only Hoshigaki's hand on his shoulder keeping him in place. Tazuna and the bureaucrats exchanged a few more polite words before Maeda rejoined the genin teams where the docks met the shore.

"Teams 2, 3, and 6 are all assigned to help the ship's captain unload. Follow his instructions; warehouse 1 is designated for this ship. Teams 1 and 4 are dismissed for the time being."

Pouting, Naruto allowed himself to be steered back to shore with one last wave to Inari and Tazuna. Sakura obediently followed her own team, knowing that there would be time to catch up with the pair later.

* * *

There was a new hope in the faces of everyone in the citadel from that point on, even more so than had filled their faces when the winter storms had eased into a milder spring, no longer threatening to outlast what they had been able to set aside against the winter, when the trade routes were nearly impassible and nothing would grow.

Tazuna and Inari were not the only tradespeople who had come to work. Several others Sakura remembered from the bridge crew had come with them, bearing lumber and other rare supplies. They immediately set to work the day after they arrived, working with the genin teams to lay pipes, build what could not be shaped from stone, and generally be of assistance. Sakura learned how to properly install plumbing on one memorable afternoon as she helped make the apartments that they had built during the winter fully habitable, and everyone learned not to let Naruto help with the wiring.

At the end of the next month, after two more ships from Wave stopped in port, these bearing goods meant for other nations, but stopping to rest and refuel, a ship bearing Kumo's flag entered the port.

Sakura had listened as Orochimaru discussed the weekly jounin meetings, and knew that there had been several back and forths between Kumo and their own council, hammering out details before both sides were willing to sign the treaty Orochimaru and the rest of the rescue party had bullied Kumo into drafting. Now, the treaty was in place, and the first, and most delicate, of the issues, was in the forefront.

Team 1 was assigned to the hospital that day, working on the plumbing and electrical wiring. The ships from Wave had carried some of the basic supplies Kabuto had needed, but they were hoping now that Kumo was an official ally and trade partner that they would have access to the up to date supplies necessary to equip the hospital. In the meantime, they were working hard to get the building back into the modern era.

She suspected that she and Itachi were being kept out of the way, so as not to rub it in Kumo's face that they had been tricked into signing the original treaty by a bluffing group of former missing-nin, but it was okay. There would be plenty of time to mend bridges with them in the future. Especially since, because of the trade agreements being a large focus of the treaty, the citadel would host a civilian ambassador from Kumo. According to Orochimaru, the original treaty had allowed for two shinobi guards, but both councils bickered back and forth and the end result was to allow only the ambassador, but passage for any shinobi travelling under diplomatic orders.

Now that they had reliable plumbing and electricity in the citadel, many civilians were starting to venture out of the villages and back to the citadel. Work was already being done on the opposite bank, clearing stone and building shops and homes for the new arrivals. Unfortunately, they weren't ready to start building restaurants, but food was still free and the menu was a bit more varied, even if they were still rationing.

Arriving at the administration building, Sakura was unsurprised to see the Kumo contingent being ushered around by Team 5. Tenten had told her the night before that Kyo had been selected as the least hotheaded of the available jounin and least likely to unintentionally cause an international incident. Karin had bristled a bit, pouting that her team never got to have fun assignments, but she cheered up when Sakura pointed out that there was no way in hell anyone in their right mind would let Suigetsu and his team near anything diplomatic, particularly given that Deidara is their genin sensei.

As she predicted, that had cheered Karin up, and the girls' moved from discussing the incoming Kumo delegation to discussing the possibility of chuunin exams in the next few months.

Tenten waved cheerily when the civilian who could only be the trade ambassador wasn't looking before going back to chatting with the blonde woman next to her. As easy as it was to spot the civilian in the delegation, it was equally easy to determine that the woman was a highly trained shinobi. Even though she was wearing standard shinobi wear, the way she moved showed that she had undergone countless hours of training. Sakura envied her catlike grace, and immediately fixed the memory of it in her mind's eye. _This_ was what she wanted to become.

Eventually they returned to their apartment building, still smelling of fresh wood from the sparse furniture within. They had no doors other than the one leading into the communal hallway, but it was an odd enough experience to hear only her own breath that Sakura didn't mind not having a door. So used to sleeping in a room with at least one other that finding herself in a room alone, on a _bed_ of all things...she didn't mind hearing Karin's soft breath from the next room over, or the way Tenten snored softly when she had a stuffed up nose from down the short hallway.

Settling in at the low table Tazuna had made especially for them, Sakura opened the scroll Orochimaru had given her, planning on working on the latest genjutsu. They apparently only had another month or so before the chuunin exams, and she was determined to pass.

"How are things going?" Karin asked after a while, making a face at the scroll she had been reading and obviously giving up if the huff of frustration she let out was any indication. "You've been pretty busy lately."

"Shishou and Itachi-sensei are working me pretty hard," Sakura admitted. "But my genjutsu skills are getting better, and I'm faster than the boys, so there's some success to be seen."

"Lucky," the redhead crossed her arms on the table and rested her head on them. "Everyone who's ever known an Uzumaki has mentioned the chains we're supposed to make, but I'm getting nowhere, even with the scrolls we found in the clan vault when we excavated it to clear the third circle."

"Do you and Naruto plan on rebuilding the clan compound?" Neither of them had mentioned it, moving into the building most of the genin had chosen to occupy once they were released from rooming in the Academy, which was now teaching a small class of children, mostly civilian children from the island or those who had come with families that had been wandering during the time after the citadel's fall.

"Maybe?" Karin's slumped shoulders shrugged. "Technically, Nagato's head of the clan, since he's older, and has the Rinnegan, so it's his decision. But since nobody's figured out how to help him get his mobility back, he's stuck in the hospital and it's mostly just Naruto and I."

"I think Kabuto and Orochimaru might have a few ideas, now that they have access to medical equipment," Sakura offered tentatively. "And they were kicking around an idea to do with the Rinnegan's supposed regenerative powers when I left today."

"Yeah, but even if we get Nagato moving again, _he_ can't do the chains either," came the mumbled response half muffled by the redhead's arm. "I really want to make this work."

"Maybe find someone with a similar type of jutsu?"

A snort. "Not everyone is as lucky as you," Karin said, straightening up. "I mean, you managed to end up in the same village as two of the most powerful genjutsu users alive. There's only three Uzumaki left."

"Try Sasori-sensei? I mean, I know puppetry is probably not what you're looking for, but it's an extension of chakra strings."

"Maybe," Karin mused. "Tenten's coming home. By the way, any clue why your hair's growing out in blonde instead of pink?"

"Kabuto thinks it's something to do with the melanin levels in my hair getting altered by wild attempts at breaking the Tsukiyomi, as well as my instinct to just flood my body with healing chakra," Sakura said, self-consciously touching her now blonde roots. "He figures that something I did caused a switch from pink to blonde, as well as speeding up the growth a bit, so now I'm going to have blonde-ish hair, and not pink."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Not sure." Sakura sighed. "I've had pink hair for so long, it's going to be weird _not_ having pink hair. But it's an extra layer of protection if I come across someone from Konoha."

"Why are we coming across someone from Konoha?" Tenten asked from the entry where she was toeing off her sandals.

"We're not," Sakura called. "At least, not for a while. If we come across anyone from Konoha though, not having pink hair makes it harder for me to be recognized."

"How's the Kumo delegation?" Karin asked as Tenten joined them at the low table, propping her head on her fist. "It's four shinobi and a civilian, right? I thought they weren't bringing shinobi."

"The civilian's on his own," Tenten agreed, stifling a yawn. "But three of the shinobi are here to support one of their jinchuuriki."

"They sent a _jinchuuriki_?" Sakura said, exchanging looks with Karin. "Why?"

"Naruto." Tenten shrugged. "Apparently, part of the deal was a jinchuuriki exchange program. Kumo let it slip that their jinchuuriki are able to communicate with their biju, so part of the treaty involved their jinchuuriki tutoring Naruto, for our assistance with sealing and training their jinchuuriki when the time comes. Her name's Nii Yugito, and she's going to be giving Naruto a crash course in the basics until after the chuunin exams, and then Hoshigaki's entire team will go to Kumo so the other jinchuuriki can teach him. Nii-san will stay here until Naruto returns."

"They're shipping my cousin off to Kumo!" Karin snapped, shooting to her feet. "Not going to happen."

"It's already agreed upon," Tenten said calmly as Sakura grabbed Karin's wrist to keep her from storming over to the administration building. "Hoshigaki and his entire team will be there, so nothing's going to happen."

"I'm not letting him go without me!"

"Karin," Sakura tried. "You'll be able to sense him. And they're going to want to keep the only other mobile Uzumaki here."

The redhead narrowed her eyes at them, but she sat back down with a huff. "Fine."

 *****Awkward filler chapter. No update next week due to moving, but hopefully updates will resume the week after.*****


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen:**

"This is so frustrating!" Sakura growled, the sound muffled by the pillow she had buried her face in as she flopped bonelessly onto her bed. "When are they going to tell us?"

"Whenever they feel like it," Karin called from across the tiny hallway separating their rooms. The redhead had been lounging on her bed when Sakura had returned from training, still studying her scrolls on Uzumaki family techniques. "We're at their mercy."

"Konoha notified us a week before," Sakura grunted. "Or rather, the signs were there, even if my sensei didn't tell us until the day before."

"He sounds like a jerk."

"He was. And he was always late."

"Kaito-sensei said that the exams should start soon, and we're just supposed to train on our own until then." Sakura heard the other girl shift, and she raised her head from where it was buried in her pillow to see Karin stretching out and setting the scrolls aside. "I doubt that's what you're looking for."

"We don't even know how they plan to run the tests," Sakura complained, shifting so she could lean against the wall. "Konoha's had three parts, and I doubt that they can stick us in a death-trap of a forest for the second one."

"That forest was really creepy," Karin agreed with a shudder. "Soooo not sad about missing that."

"It was an important test though," Sakura mused. "I mean, the combat stages are pretty straightforward. Fight someone, and it shows your own skill and your strategy. The Forest was all about survival and long term planning. Traps, strategy, actual completion of a mission objective...all important things to test us on."

"So the first test rounds it out with information gathering?" At that, Sakura straightened instantly, focus now directly on the other girl, who looked somewhat disconcerted by the intensity. "Sakura, _what_?"

"Say that again," the other girl ordered, drumming her fingers on her thighs as she thought. "The purpose of the first test was…?"

"Information gathering?" Karin repeated, sitting up and adjusting her glasses.

"Are there any shinobi in weird places or clusters?" Sakura demanded, jumping off her bed and reaching for the pack stowed underneath it, mostly empty except for mission-only supplies. Now that they were moved into semi-furnished apartments, they were allowed the luxury of unpacking. Furiously, she rummaged through her closet, wishing they had moved far enough away from mere subsistence living that she could afford hangers and a closet organizer. Or a dresser and a weapons trunk, but she'd settle for hangers.

"There's a group at that one training ground they closed two days ago, but they're probably fixing it," Karin answered slowly. "Why does it matter?"

"Jounin?"

"Yeah, probably. A few chuunin I think."

"The first test in Konoha was information gathering," Sakura muttered over the sound of her rooting through her closet for everything she might need. "And suddenly, two days ago we're all taken off the missions roster, told to train and relax, and everyone's talking about the exams but the people who should be?"

" _Damn_ ," Karin breathed, and Sakura heard her get up and start rummaging through her own closet. "You think we should tell the others?"

"Tell the others what?" Tenten asked, coming in from the main room. Sakura hadn't noticed her return, but she had been concentrating on not slicing her hand open on the kunai tangled in her clothes.

"Sakura thinks the chuunin exams have started," Karin explained with a grunt as something shifted in her room. "Konoha's first test was information gathering, right?"

"All the rumors?" Tenten asked, and Sakura looked up to see the older girl leaning against the doorway with her weapons scroll on, clearly just returned from training. "Where?"

"That closed training ground." Carefully, Sakura folded two extra outfits and dropped them at the bottom of her pack before piling just about every weapon she owned, plus several explosive tags and a sealing scroll, on top of them. Checking the straps that held her bedroll to the bottom, she stood up and headed for the kitchen, sidestepping Tenten.

"Are we telling our teams?" Tenten asked, moving to enter her own room as Karin exited hers with her pack in hands. "Or are we doing this solo?"

"We'll tell them," Sakura shrugged as she reached for the box of ration bars hidden in the top cabinet. Dividing their stash into thirds, she passed a third to Karin, set the second third on the counter, and slid the rest into her pack. The redhead was already reaching for their water bottles, and traded Sakura's for the ration bars. "And Naruto too, since he may not figure it out."

"Is that against the rules? I mean, he's competition." Karin wrinkled her nose. For all that she and Naruto were fiercely defensive of each other, they were equally competitive.

"It's not like there's as many of us as there were in Konoha," Sakura pointed out. "Besides, if they weren't there, they might put us against each other."

Tenten made a face as she emerged with her own pack and started adding the ration bars. "Ugh, that would suck. Your genjutsu scrolls look nasty, and Karin's stamina is ridiculous."

Karin passed her a full water bottle with a smirk. "Uzumaki benefit," she sang cheerfully. "Now, I'm going to grab Isamu, so go tell Naruto when you grab Juugo. Sakura, we'll see you there?"

"Count on it," the other girl promised, before slipping out the living room window and cloaking her presence with genjutsu and chakra suppression.

It probably wasn't needed, but she didn't want to take the chance of anyone seeing her with her pack on. Telling Naruto was one thing, but she wanted to make sure that she had a pretty good chance of reaching chuunin. Both Itachi and Orochimaru had promised her new training when she achieved chuunin, and she was determined to pass on her first try in Uzushio.

Since glass was still a rarity, slipping into Ikeda and Shimizu's shared apartment was easy. She wasn't a sensor like Karin, but it was easy enough to feel both of their chakra's inside, so she dropped the visual genjutsu and headed for where she could feel them.

Shimizu was just coming out of the shower, with only a towel around his waist preventing her from seeing everything. As he turned beet red, Sakura shrugged and turned to peek inside Ikeda's room. Kabuto had made certain to desensitize her to human anatomy after their first lessons about healing genitalia and the surrounding areas when she stuttered and blushed her way through them.

"I have a lead on the chuunin exams," she explained as her other teammate looked up and Shimizu beat a hasty retreat for his room. "Pack for a long mission, just in case, and meet me in your kitchen."

* * *

By the time they reached the training ground, it was dusk and Sakura could feel the adrenaline in her veins urging her to do _something_ with it. Carefully, they slipped around the sign blocking the entranceway (really, who thought some wooden thing could keep out ninja) and proceeded carefully into the semi-darkness of the training grounds, all senses alert for what might await them.

"Where is she?" a voice muttered softly, and Sakura smirked. Tenten was there, which probably meant Juugo as well. Her genjutsu and chakra suppression must be working, if the other girl couldn't sense her.

"They just got here," Karin's voice answered, and Sakura sighed. _Not good enough to fool the best sensor alive_. Nudging Ikeda, who was closest to her, she moved towards the voices, wondering if Naruto was with them, and if so, how they had managed to keep him quiet.

"Took you long enough," Karin whispered with a roll of her eyes from where she stood between Juugo and her own teammate Isamu. "There's a cluster of chakra signatures beneath us, and since we're not supposed to know much elemental manipulation, there's probably a way in."

"Spread out and look?" Sakura suggested, dropping her genjutsu but keeping her chakra suprressed. "Shoulder to shoulder, so that we don't miss anything."

"Sounds as good as anything," Juugo agreed easily, and turned to inspect the stone wall behind him.

It only took a moment for Isamu to find it, a seemingly natural crack in the rocky stone that surrounded almost every training ground that led into a small cavern with a ladder leading down. In the dim light as they all squeezed in, Karin held up a hand for silence before pulling out two tags.

Squinting at the seals on them, Sakura thought she saw the seal equivalent of a smoke bomb and a flash tag, which were reasonable since this was probably an exam and they didn't know what awaited them below. Pressing back against the wall, they made enough room for Karin to crouch by the hole with both tags in her hand. With handsigns, she indicated the positions of each shinobi in the room below, and they all called their targets.

As Karin tied both tags to a kunai and prepared to let them drop, Sakura pulled the collar of the turtleneck she had chosen to wear over her nose, like Kakashi's mask. It wouldn't do much, but since none of them had masks to filter out the smoke, or goggles to protect their eyes, it would have to do. Around her, the others were doing similar things, if they could. Ikeda had his hitai-ite over his mouth and nose, which seemed to be the popular option, although Karin had pressed her arm over her face, allowing her sleeve to act as a barrier.

At a count of three, Karin dropped the tags, and as they went off, Sakura and the others _moved_.

She was first through the hole, ignoring the ladder in favor of cushioning her landing with chakra, even as she called up a genjutsu to mask the genin behind her as they followed. As her eyes darted around the room, memorizing the details, she expanded the genjutsu, allowing her allies to see the true layout of the room, but subtly altering it for the occupants, who were choking and rubbing at their eyes. One of them stumbled into a table that should have been a few inches to the left, and another tripped over the chair that should have been out of the way. Tenten and Juugo were on them in a heartbeat, making sure that they wouldn't be able to move to help their two allies that Shimizu and Ikeda were stalking.

As the last of the true smoke disappeared, Sakura dropped her improvised mask and flashed a handsign up through the opening to Karin and Isamu, who had hung back to guard their rear. While whistling was apparently the preferred method of discreet communication in Uzushio, Sakura and the others had pressured Kyo and some of the other jounin into teaching them handsigns as well, for times like this where silence was better.

Gesturing to Shimizu, who had the one Karin had marked as the most powerful of the group, Sakura pointed at the only chair left standing upright and waited for him to loop the shinobi's wrists in ninja wire before breaking the genjutsu.

"Hello councilman," she said cheerfully, making sure that her genjutsu blocking sound was still in place for the other three. "Are we too late to participate in the chuunin exams?"

* * *

"1000 meters."

Sakura moved in the direction Karin indicated with a few swift handsigns, and prepared herself. The key to this was being quick, silent, and unseen.

Each of the other four genin were carrying their flags as they were told to. Two were already missing his, and all four looked a little worse for wear.

As the striker on the team, Sakura was up first in all of the ambushes they had conducted. A few fast handsigns, and their presence was completely hidden, not that they thought there might be a sensor on the other team. It was too draining to keep up over a large area, so they limited the use to moments where they were approaching teams.

Another set of handsigns, and she stepped into a shunshin. In two quick steps she was even with her chosen target, and neatly cutting through the flag, allowing it to be snatched from where he had tied it around his upper arm. It was something she had mastered just a day before the exams had started, and thanks to her genjutsu, nobody knew that she had mastered it.

This was the second team they had ambushed. Two days ago, they had been released into the underground maze with orders to take each other's flags and not kill each other. The teams had all been shuffled, so that nobody was on a team with their genin teammates. Someone had decided that an all kunoichi team was a reasonable combination. Thus, Sakura, Karin, and Tenten had found themselves working together, with Naruto's female teammate, Minami.

The first team they had ambushed had chosen to fortify an area of the maze, drawing in all their attackers. It had worked, but they were unable to hold the defenses against Tenten's barrage of weaponry, not when Karin's smoke bomb seals masked Minami's charge over their hastily erected barriers.

Early on their first day, all of them had chosen to only take one flag from each team. While they may be marked down for not systematically crushing the teams that they were able to, none of them wanted to be the reason why their fellow genin didn't make it to chuunin. It was important that the village build its forces quickly, and a trivial loss in the maze would only prevent them from making any sort of a showing during the third stage, which was likely single combat.

Between Karin's sensing ability and Sakura's genjutsu, they were able to hide their presence from every team whose path they crossed, and lay effective ambushes. Sakura did worry that they were relying too much on the redhead's sensing abilities and not enough on their own tracking abilities, but it they were given a tool, they were sure as hell going to use it.

Her chosen victim was entirely unaware of her removal of his flag, and as Sakura retreated back to her group, she allowed herself a brief grin. They only had one more team to go, although it was probably going to be their biggest challenge.

"Where's the supernova?" Tenten asked Karin after they had retreated from their last targets.

"West," the redhead said with a vicious grin. "They're fighting Isamu's team."

"You're up," Sakura said, putting her water bottle away after taking a quick drink. "Should we hit them mid-fight, or ambush them like the rest?"

"If we book it, we can get there mid-fight, if things keep going the way they are," Karin mused. "It would be nice to rub it in Naruto's face that they're not infallible as they're gloating over their win."

"Are you sure it's going to be his win?" Minami pointed out doubtfully. "They put him with Suigetsu…"

"Oh, they're spending just as much time fighting each other as they are fighting Isamu's team," Karin said cheerfully as she started moving towards their final quarry. "But with his shadow clones, in such a confined space? Naruto's pretty much handed a win."

"Fair point."

* * *

"Tenten, can you lay down covering fire?" Karin asked as they moved closer to the slowly dying fighting. "That will generate a ton of smoke as all those clones disperse, and then I'll be able to sneak in, grab their flag, and we can all get the hell out of here before they realize."

"I'll use genjutsu to help block the retreat," Sakura offered as Tenten began pulling out scrolls. "Whistle if you need help."

"On my mark," Minami said, catching both Karin and Tenten's eyes as Sakura began spinning the genjutsu to hide them. "Three, two...now."

Tenten's weapons flew true, and the entire tunnel was filled with smoke. Concentrating on weaving the genjutsu, Sakura watched as Karin disappeared into the fray.

Moments later she was back, a wide grin on her face and waving one of the other team's flags. Not bothering to stick around to watch the aftermath, all four kunoichi in training beat a hasty retreat.

* * *

They holed up in a cave almost impossible to see from the ground level, but if you looked up at the ceiling you would notice the odd shadow patterns. Sakura spun her genjustus to make it completely invisible, and they felt confident enough resting there for the rest of the exam.

"Are we sure that we can't go pick a few more flags off Naruto and Suigetsu?" Karin asked between bites of her rations bar. "I mean, there's no way they've lost more than the one."

"I thought you wanted to fight him in the finals," Tenten asked as she unwrapped her own rations bar. "Triumph in a large public setting?"

"That too," Karin seemed contemplative as she chewed. "Can't I have both?"

Before anyone could answer, a bell rang through the maze, followed by the announcement: "The second portion of the exam is over. Will all examinees please report to the entrance."

After a quick _kai_ , Sakura unspun the genjutsu hiding them and jumped down out of their cave. Tenten reluctantly repacked her own rations bar as Karin stuffed the last of hers into her mouth as she jumped down. As a unit, they made their way cautiously to the entrance of the maze, wary for any team looking to get revenge, since there had been no rules about ambushing teams on their way to the exit.

Their senseis were waiting for them in the antechamber that was the entrance to the maze, along with the council member tasked with overseeing the exams.

"Congratulations, all of you," the old man said with a smile. "You have all done well. Tomorrow will be the third exam: single combat. Rest well, and prepare yourselves to do Uzushio proud."

* * *

Fighting in the third exams was exhilarating. Sakura felt bad when she trounced Shimizu in the second round, but he grinned as he shook her hand before going up to take a seat next to the rest of the eliminated participants.

And then, somehow it was herself, Suigetsu, Naruto, and one of the older genin in the semi-finals. But instead of announcing the matchups, the way he had all morning, the proctor gathered them in a half circle around him.

"Our guests from Kumo have volunteered to fight the you four. Take a break for lunch and then return."

Sakura didn't eat much. She knew that eating before a big fight wasn't a great idea, so she nibbled on a rations bar and made sure to drink enough water to rehydrate her. Itachi sat with her for the hour break, and her shishou stopped by and rested his hand on his shoulder as he told her that she had done well.

Her matchup against the Kumo shinobi was, in her opinion, absolutely embarrassing.

The minute she walked into the makeshift arena and saw that her opponent was the blonde kunoichi who Tenten had pointed out was Kumo's younger jinchuuriki, Sakura knew there was no way that she would walk out of the match a victor. But it served to harden her resolve to do well in spite of the disadvantage, and her mind was spinning with strategies as she faced the other kunoichi. As the proctor called time, she disappeared.

Every genjutsu that she knew was called into play, at least those suitable for a combat situation. Her presence was fully masked, preventing the kunoichi from tracking her, but the woman's defenses were formidable. Eventually, the drain on her chakra from keeping herself invisible and her chakra fully suppressed became too much for her to maintain and still be capable of fighting, so she shimmered back into sight and went back on the offensive.

The kunoichi was kind enough to hold back, keeping it just above Sakura's level and allowing her to show off just what skills she had. In a straight fight like this, in the middle of an open arena, Sakura knew her skillset put her at a disadvantage. Itachi and her shishou had been training her for a role as an assassin, as someone who primarily worked in the shadows. There were no shadows in this arena, but she was going to do her best in spite of that.

When the kunoichi had worn her down enough that Sakura knew it was moments before she passed out or started making fatal errors, Sakura put as much distance between herself and the kunoichi before raising her hand and declaring her forfeit.

"Come find me after this is done," the kunoichi said as they shook hands afterwards. "There's a few things you might be able to put to good use, and I'll be here for a while."

"Really?" Sakura murmured, eyes lighting up. She knew that Itachi had taught her because she was assigned to him, and Orochimaru had because she had approached him, but to have the offer extended from someone who had been able to thoroughly thrash her if she hadn't been kind enough to hold back…

It made up for losing, and the aches and pains she was sure to feel the next day.

* * *

The next day, all of the genin were assembled in front of the council. Their senseis stood behind them, and most of the shinobi not assigned to any specific duty were lingering wherever they thought was inconspicuous in the administrative building.

"You have all performed well," the councilman in charge of supervising the exams stated with a smile. "We had many difficult decisions to make, but we are ready to announce those who we have recommended for promotion."

As Sakura expected, the oldest genin were promoted. Tenten was also promoted, and she stepped forward to join the other new chuunin with a wide grin. Karin and Suigetsu soon joined her, elbowing each other discretely. The match that Suigetsu had won to catapult him into the semi-finals was against Karin, and it was the closest to a grudge match Sakura had seen since Naruto and Neji took each other on in Konoha's chuunin exams, minus the pretty speeches about destiny.

Shimizu was promoted, and then they were calling her name, and Sakura was stepping forward to stand with the rest of the newly promoted chuunin.

"That concludes the promotions from this year's exams," the councilmember said, and Sakura couldn't help but look over her shoulder at Naruto's crestfallen face. She felt guilt twisting in her stomach over his second failure, but forced her face to remain impassive. "Each of you had an excellent showing, but we chose those whom we felt were best prepared to be promoted. Those who were promoted, please remain for your new orders. The rest of you, your jounin-senseis will have instructions for you."

Behind her, the genin filed out quietly, and the jounin senseis after them. When the door closed, one of the council members reached under the table they were sitting behind and lifted a box onto the surface.

"We have body armor for each of you," the woman informed them with a smile. "Consider it a reward for passing the exams."

"Things won't change too much," Sakura's grandmother said with a smile. "You'll be joining the other chuunin in the boring duties that make any village run smoothly. Door guards, gate guards, port duty, and so on. At this point, only jounin are cleared to take missions outside of our territory, but postings at the outposts are also possible."

"This is also the time where you may choose to specialize," another of the council members added. "You are welcome to approach any member of the shinobi forces about an apprenticeship, so long as you submit the proper paperwork."

"You have the rest of today off, and the new assignments will be posted to the board in the chuunin lounge tomorrow," the councilman who had supervised the exams finished. "Congratulations, chuunin of Uzushio."

Bowing deeply, Sakura felt her previous guilt being replaced by joy. She had made chuunin.

She, Shiroyami Sakura, was a _chuunin of Uzushio_.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen:**

Being a chuunin was...not that different from being a genin.

Sakura still trained. She still did missions for the benefit of the citadel. She still lived in a mostly-bare apartment with her fellow new chuunin, down the hall from genin. She still worked with Orochimaru and Itachi.

There were some differences. She was now qualified for gate duty and occasional duty in the administrative building. Some of her missions were at the harbor, where she served under the harbormaster and other administrative figures, working to ensure that their newly resurrected trade ties were flourishing. The kunoichi classes that she had been attending shifted to classes on fuuinjutsu. Karin had a natural talent for crafting new seals. Tenten was good at tweaking them. And Sakura found that she was able to strategize with them.

She was on gate duty early one morning with another chuunin when the messenger arrived, shooting down the rapids on the light, single person boats that the villages along the waterways had started keeping now that the citadel was reborn. It was the fastest way they had to send messages, since they hadn't been able to develop their own aviaries yet.

"Ships," the messenger called, practically crashing the boat against the rocky shore as he leapt out of it and rushed towards them. "With the flag of Kiri-in-exile! Heading this way from the north! News from the northern outpost!"

Exchanging looks with the other chuunin, Sakura called up her chakra. "I'm fastest," she stated, daring him to contradict her. It was probably true; Orochimaru and Itachi could both beat her when they sparred, but she was faster than all of the genin and new chuunin, and likely many of the chuunin that had come to the citadel with their rank.

"Go," he said, whistling the alarm signal to alert the shinobi and civilians nearby that there was trouble incoming. Sakura stepped into a shunshin, already running, using every trick she had learned from all of her mentors, including the memories of Uchiha Shisui teaching Itachi years ago.

As she breezed by the shinobi and civilians on the first floor of the administrative building, Sakura ignored the stairs in favor of running on the walls, up the tightly spiraling staircase designed to confuse intruders and prevent them from reaching the top without heavy opposition. Landings appeared at intervals, leading deeper into the building, but all were now blocked by heavy wooden doors reinforced with newly carved seals.

Uzushio had learned her lesson; the citadel would not fall so easily.

Reaching the lobby in front of the council room, on the floor below the empty office above where one day a headman or woman would take their seat, Sakura didn't knock and wait to be admitted. She threw the door open and dropped into a slight bow as she let her momentum carry her to a stop in the center of the floor in front of the council's bench. "Shiroyami reporting from the gates. Northern outpost reports ships incoming, bearing the flag of Kiri-in-exile."

She had heard the talk around the fires, in the early days, about their neighbor to the east, the country responsible for the citadel's fall. _Locked in a civil war_ , the shinobi and civilians who had left to travel said firmly. _Two attempts at assassinating the Mizukage. Momochi had to flee, and Terumi after him_.

Momochi Zabuza, she knew. She remembered his lonely grave on the shores of Wave, his deadly rampage through Gato's sellswords and thugs. Sakura suspects now that he had joined Gato for the money, money that could help finance a revolution in Kiri that would break the endless civil wars his country had been trapped in.

Terumi Mei was unknown to her. Supposedly the leader of the dissonants, she had led a failed coup not long before Konoha's chuunin exams, and then fled with her rebellion to the mainland countries, regrouping to gather support from those that had left Kiri before her failed coup. The flag of Kiri-in-exile was a symbolic one, according to Orochimaru, who Sakura had asked one night when the nightmares plagued her. The point was not to start a splinter group, but to gather those who had left under a single banner, in hopes that a second attempt at removing the Yondaime Mizukage would be more successful.

"Fetch Konan, Kakuzu, and Orochimaru," her grandmother ordered sharply. "Deidara's genin team should be in the third circle; send them here, and return with Orochimaru for further orders."

Another quick bow, and Sakura was running again, not bothering with the stairs when she could go out the window on the landing instead. She needed Karin to find Kakuzu quickly, and Sakura knew the redhead was probably asleep after having the night shift the day before.

Thankfully, the Uzumaki was curled up in her bed as Sakura charged through the window. Sitting upright, Karin grabbed for her glasses as she leveled a kunai in Sakura's direction.

"I need you to tell me where Kakuzu is," Sakura explained quickly.

"In the jounin lounge with Hidan and Konan," Karin replied automatically. "What's going on?"

"Can't say," Sakura called as she launched herself back out the window, trying to remember which window led to the jounin lounge. Having Konan and Kakuzu in the same location was convenient, if surprising. But ever since Sakura had returned from her time in Kumo, she had come to find Konan spending more time away from Nagato in the hospital, taking more of a role in the administrative side of running the citadel.

Orochimaru had once commented that it might be Nagato's vision that had shaped Akatsuki, but Konan had been his right hand, ensuring that orders were given and tasks carried out.

All three stood up immediately as Sakura jumped through the window, but they stood down when they saw it was her. "Sorry for the alarm, but Konan-san, Kakuzu-san, the council requests your presence."

Thankfully, neither of them asked questions, and Sakura slipped back out the window as she contemplated the fastest route to the research building where her shishou was likely to be at this time of day.

In order to make sure she catches up with Deidara's team, which now includes Ikeda because she and Shimizu had been promoted, she ends up taking the long way around, bouncing from rooftop to rooftop until she spots the jounin's distinctive hair. It always makes her think of Ino, and if this wasn't as urgent as _Kiri arriving on their doorstep_ , Sakura might have taken a moment to wonder what her former friend thought of her now. But Kiri was arriving on their doorstep if the shinobi in the outpost were correct, and Sakura couldn't spare a moment.

They manage to pick up on the _urgent-trouble-don't panic_ message she was trying to convey when she passed on the message that they were needed in the council's chamber, which was a relief. What wasn't so helpful was when she was standing in her shishou's office, now complete with an actual desk and a shelf for the scrolls and books he had been accumulating, and couldn't find him.

Checking his desk to see what he had last been working on, she was surprised to see an old discussion of the doujutsus open, but then she saw his notes on Nagato's rinnegan and its abilities lying next to it and she had a fair guess of where he might be. It was the work of a moment to slip out his side window, touch down lightly on the wall dividing the second and third circles, and slip into Kabuto's office in the hospital.

Neither of them were there, but she headed straight for the only occupied room in what would become the long-term resident ward once they had enough activity to actually _have_ wards. As she suspected, Orochimaru and Kabuto were sitting with Nagato and discussing the rinnegan's regenerative properties.

"Shishou," Sakura said with a slight bow. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but you are needed in the council's chamber."

"Something happened," he stated, rising from his chair sharply. "What?"

"Ships," she answered falling into step beside him as they headed for the fastest route to the administration building. "With the Kiri exiles' flag, according to the report from the outpost."

He said nothing in reply, but picked up speed.

* * *

The council was in closed door meetings for the entire day. Sakura found herself on the wrong side of the closed door after fetching the people she had been asked to get, acting as runner and door guard for those inside. From the comments and complaints of what seemed like (and probably was) every shinobi of at least chuunin level and many of the genin who passed by the door in an attempt to figure out what was going on, the port had been closed and the main gates shut and sealed, with every resident of the citadel and surrounding area safe within the walls.

Tenten had mentioned that tensions were high, especially among the older shinobi who had known Uzushio before the citadel's fall, before reporting to the walls with the bulk of the chuunin and jounin forces. Karin had been pulled into the council room, grouchy and half awake, likely to give on the spot updates on the shinobi approaching by sea. Sakura had been busy for the first hour after her roommate arrived, fetching coffee and something to eat.

Suigetsu was also in attendance, the only shinobi in the citadel to have any connection to Kiri with Hoshigaki having left a week earlier with his genin team to fulfill the jinchuuriki exchange program agreed upon with Kumo. The message bird kept by Kumo's trade ambassador had been sent off, likely to warn the Raikage.

"Ships approaching the harbor!" Came the cry, echoing down the staircase from the lookout posted on the aviary rooftop, built atop the administrative building for convenience's sake.

As she had been ordered, Sakura knocked on the council room's door and waited for permission to enter. "Ships approaching the harbor," she announced as she was admitted.

"Very well." Her grandmother's mouth was set in a firm line. "Are we in agreement?"

One by one, the council members nodded, and as they stood, Sakura realized that most of them were in armor.

"Signal red to the harbormaster," the councilman who had overseen the chuunin exams ordered Sakura. "We're beginning the evacuation into the shelters."

A quick bow later, and Sakura was leaning out the windowsill on the landing, brandishing a red flag. When a similar flag was waved back at her, she withdrew back to the council room.

"Take the genin squads," her grandmother was saying to the unarmored council members. "Leave their jounin senseis, but take the genin to defend the shelters. The rest of us will hear them out, or defend the walls, whatever may come."

"May the current flow swiftly in your direction," the oldest of the council members said gravely with a deep bow, before leading the other unarmed members out the door and down the staircase.

Sakura sidled towards where Karin and Suigetsu were sitting against the wall and waited for further orders. They didn't have to wait long, because as soon as the last council member heading for the shelters had left, her grandmother turned to them.

"Uzumaki, you're going to be attached to my side until otherwise informed," her grandmother ordered. "Do you need to gather any other weapons?"

"No taichou," Karin said, fingering the kunai pouch at her hip. "I'm all set."

"Hozuki, I want you to stay back during any negotiations. Depending on who they send, your presence may complicate things because of your brother. You're with Kyo's group. And Shiroyami…" Her grandmother paused before continuing. "Find Uchiha or Orochimaru. You're with them. They'll tell you what to do."

"Hai," Sakura murmured, and then slipped out the window, glancing back at Karin, who pointed in the direction of the hospital.

Touching down on the hospital's roof, she was surprised to find Kabuto, Nagato, and Konan there, as well as Orochimaru and Itachi.

"I've been placed under the two of you," Sakura said in response to the questioning look Orochimaru sent her as she landed. "I would have thought Nagato would have been moved to the shelters."

"He wants to try something," Konan said, lips pressing firmly together in what could only be disapproval. "I told him that now is not the time for drastic experiments."

"On the contrary," Nagato offered back from his seat on a blanket on the ground, Rinnegan eyes taking in the sails of the ships outside the harbor, "now is _exactly_ the time."

"We think we've found a way to restore his mobility," Kabuto added, adjusting his glasses. "We just haven't had a chance to try it yet."

"It's a one time deal," the Uzumaki said with a shrug. "Don't be alarmed everybody, I don't know what's going to happen."

"Because _that's_ reassuring," Konan muttered, but she took a step back as he wished.

Sakura felt a buildup of potent chakra, and then, almost as if a switch was flipped, the chakra nature changed, and she was almost knocked back by the sheer force of healing chakra radiating from the redhead. He had put on muscle and gained weight so that he no longer looked skeletal, but he was still far from measuring up against a shinobi.

When the chakra faded, Kabuto and Konan were at his side in an instant, gently supporting the Uzumaki as he gulped air greedily.

"Did it work?" Kabuto asked, and Sakura could hear the eagerness in his voice, unusual, since he normally kept himself professionally detached.

"How do you feel?" Konan asked firmly, shooting Kabuto a glare.

In response, Nagato lifted his right foot slowly.

"Impressive," Orochimaru mused, studying the display. "So the rinnegan's restorative powers can be used on their host's body."

"Science later," Nagato said firmly, lowering his foot and reaching for Konan's hands. "Let's get me on my feet so that I don't have to watch another home be destroyed when I can do nothing about it."

Konan sighed, but helped him to his feet. At first he was wobbly, but he soon stabilized, looking around him.

A shinobi skidded to a stop on the street below. "Was that something we should be concerned about?" he called up to Sakura, since she was closest to the edge of the roof.

Nagato and Orochimaru both shook their heads at her. "No," she answered back, and then turned to her mentor and the Uzumaki, now standing unassisted. "Should I spread the good news?"

"It might help morale," Nagato said with a shrug. "I'm fine with that."

"Go ahead, Shiroyami," Orochimaru acquiesed.

"Uzumaki Nagato is now fully mobile," she called down, and the shinobi's eyes went wide. "Might want to spread that around. Make sure Shiroyami and the council members hear about it."

"Hai!"

Turning back to the collection of shinobi on the roof, Sakura asked: "So, what exactly are our orders?"

"I'm manning the hospital," Kabuto murmured, and with one last look at Nagato, he headed for the stairs. "Make sure we both live through whatever happens Uzumaki, because I have no compunctions about raising you from the dead to get some answers on how well our wild guess worked."

Sakura snorted, and Konan frowned a bit deeper, if at all possible, before sighing and giving up with a shrug.

Itachi eventually answered her question. "We're a strike team, dedicated to protecting the hospital, but moving as we see fit."

"So," Sakura mulled the words over in her head for a moment, "we're up here because there's good visibility, we can be deployed almost instantly, and I'm the only combat medic we have? And because three of us could probably hold the hospital indefinitely if needed?"

"In summary,' Orochimaru agreed. "Konan, where did they want you?"

"With the council by the gates," she muttered, and shooting one last worried glance at Nagato, she faded into a small stream of paper slips carried off towards the gates on a breeze.

"Three shinobi came ashore," Nagato offered, taking a seat on the blanket on the roof. "They're on their way up to the gates now."

"Probably not a frontal attack then," Itachi murmured, seating himself on the edge of the roof. Sakura joined him, and together they looked out towards the gates, where Uzushio's paltry forces had gathered to protect the citadel they called home.

"Not at the start," she agreed.

* * *

It turned out that there was no assault.

Instead, there was another alliance forged, witnessed by the majority of Uzushio's forces and the two guards Terumi Mei had brought with her.

"So, let me get this straight." Sakura was sitting around the low table in their apartment with Tenten and Karin. "All of this was because the Raikage decided that _this_ alliance was going pretty well, so when he heard Terumi was near Kumo, he invited her to treaty negotiations, and then pointed her in our direction when they worked out well for him?"

"Pretty much," Karin said, toying with the kunai she had been sharpening. "I mean, it was kind of anticlimactic. Shiroyami-taichou went out there and did a fair bit of posturing meant to show that we weren't going to be the pushover that we look like, and Terumi just laughs, says she hopes so because she wants to form an alliance."

"And then, she pulls out a letter from Hoshigaki, and another one from the Raikage," Tenten adds. "I was up on the walls with Kyo and Suigetsu, but apparently both of them vouched for her, and Hoshigaki said that from his perspective it was a good opportunity. Also that Naruto was getting along with Kumo's other jinchuuriki."

"That's more than we can say for Nii and Terumi," Karin snickered. "Sakura, you didn't get to see her, but Terumi's wearing this long, off the shoulder dress thing, and her hair's in a long ponytail, but loose and over her eye. And when I say long, I mean, long enough to touch her ankles long."

"Nii is completely practical, isn't she?" Sakura commented, stealing a skewer of dango from the center of the table. They had splurged for it before the Kiri ships had been sighted, and they were only just now getting a chance to sit down and eat it.

"Yup," Tenten agreed cheerfully, grabbing the last skewer before Karin could. "Nii made this sniffing sound as Terumi walked by, and I swear on all that I hold dear, Terumi just smiled and made a comment along the lines of 'well, you're rather catty, aren't you dear?'."

"The Nibi, which is Nii's biju," Karin informed Sakura, who had lost the trail of the conversation, "is rumored to be a cat. Nii looked moments away from turning Terumi into a scratching post."

"I mean, Nii's outfit is perfectly sensible," Sakura replied. "I learned the hard way that a frivolous appearance would get you killed if you weren't careful." Some days, as she brushed her lengthening hair, she could feel the Oto kunoichi's hands gripping it, pulling it back, hear the voice taunting her about the amount of time she put into styling it. "We all put our hair up out in the field. It's part of being a kunoichi."

"Well, at least we'll have plenty of time to watch the catfights," Tenten shrugged, dropping her dango skewer on the plate in the centre of the table. "I've got early morning gate duty and it's going to be a mess, because they're opening the harbor again and letting the Kiri rebels' ships in. Which means that we need to get paperwork from _all_ of them."

"I'm already tapped for administrative building work," Karin shot back. "Who do you think is going to _provide_ that paperwork?"

"Kabuto and Orochimaru want to run a battery of tests on Nagato before they clear him to leave the hospital," Sakura said before she was interrupted by a yawn. "Since I'm the second best medic with chakra-healing abilities, I'm supposed to sit in."

"So," Tenten summarized with a shrug, "we've all got insane amounts of work to do tomorrow, but instead of going to sleep and counting senbon or whatever it is we do, we're sitting here gossiping like the old fishwives in the market."

"Hint taken," Karin said, getting to her feet as she collected the kunai she had been sharpening. "G'night everyone. See you tomorrow if they don't bury me under paperwork before then."

* * *

"Provided that you feel no ill effects," Kabuto announced, looking up from the stack of notes he'd been reviewing, "you're free to leave the hospital whenever you choose. Come back every week for a check-in, and make sure you maintain proper nutrition. Ease back into physical training as well; we don't know how fragile the recently restored sections are. I can assume Konan will be keeping an eye on you?"

The look Konan shot Nagato was half threat, half promise. "Since you've been discharged, the council wants to meet with you at the earliest possible convenience about taking up leadership of the Uzumaki clan," she told the redhead as he pushed himself off the hospital bed. "Despite the fact that there are only three living members at this point, there was at least one cache of Uzumaki clan artifacts discovered in the rubble. Plus, I believe the ancestral grounds of the clan compound have been cleared in the reconstruction efforts, but no work has been done with the headship in limbo."

"You're just trying to get me chained to a desk, aren't you?" Nagato muttered under his breath as he slipped his feet into his sandals and tightened the straps. "Haven't I been sedentary enough for the past few decades?"

As the pair left the hospital room, bickering good-naturedly as they went, Sakura turned to her mentor, who had been observing by the window. "Shishou, what's next?"

"Uchiha wanted to work with you on some things," the sannin replied, pushing himself out of the shaft of sunlight the window provided with a slight frown. "Something about the seal you've been working on with him?"

"Oh, the chameleon jutsu seal that I've been tailoring," Sakura kept pace with Orochimaru on their way back to the staff-only passage that connected the research center and the hospital. "Remember, you gave me some tips on how to make it more subtle? Itachi-sensei was going to work with me on testing it against the sharingan."

"The purpose is to lessen the chakra drain required to become unnoticeable, correct?" he asked, but she could tell his mind was on other things.

"Instead of feeding off your chakra to do a complete disappearance, it's supposed to alter other people's perceptions in a genjutsu-like fashion." Sakura watched for a tell that could offer insight as to what her mentor was distracted by, but he was too experienced of a shinobi to let her see one. So she mentioned a few of the more technically interesting details of the seal that he had offered some advice on, and then left him in his office while she went to find Itachi.

Her former genin-sensei was waiting for her in the square outside the administration building. If she didn't know better, he almost looked...relieved to see her.

"The sheer amount of political posturing going on in there," he said once they had retreated to their favorite training ground, "is unbelievable."

"I thought most of that would be over with, since Terumi already worked out a treaty with the Raikage?"

"Her negotiation with Kumo was apparently easier to swallow for the more traditional dissenters," Itachi explained as Sakura inked the seal she was experimenting with onto the back of her hand. "Alliances between major villages are uncommon, but not unheard of. It's the alliance with a previously thought to be destroyed village that has them on edge. Thankfully," he paused to grin wryly at her, "Terumi is perfectly willing to fight her own people for this, so half of it is the council just sitting there and watching her make their arguments for them."

"Sounds like Karin's having a blast," Sakura muttered. "Okay. I need you to turn around and close your eyes. Count to thirty, and then open them. No sharingan, and then when you see a kunai thrown at you, you can use the sharingan."

"You just want me to find you, correct?"

"Correct," she agreed. "I want to test the effectiveness in multiple terrains, which is why this training ground is ideal, and first without doujutsu and then with doujutsu."

"I'm turning around now."

A sliver of chakra, fed into the seal, her chakra suppressed in a heartbeat, and Sakura slipped silently into the trees. Continuing to keep moving, as quickly and silently as she could, would benefit her the most in this lopsided game of hide-and-seek, and she had learned from the best. Orochimaru had run her through exercises like this when his chakra was still bound, leaving him reserves of less than a genin, forcing him to be creative, especially with the Sandaime having sealed his ability to use ninjutsu or anything requiring handsigns.

She saw Itachi turn, studying the grouping of trees she was currently hiding in with a determined expression. Once or twice, he seemed to almost catch her, but she stayed a step ahead of him, careful never to overwhelm the seal. With her precise chakra control, and the way the seal was constructed to amplify the tiny amount of chakra fed into it, unless you were a sensor the way Karin, and possibly Nagato, was, it was likely that she could avoid detection by almost all shinobi, if this worked.

After several laps around the entire training area, first the trees, then the rocky section at the base of the mountain, and then in the middle of the clearing itself, Sakura threw a kunai at her sensei, and then triggered a shunshin that placed her well up and to the right of where she had just been.

The red and black of the sharingan sent a tremor of unease down her spine, but she kep her breathing regulated, her chakra suppressed, and her movements deliberate. As he continued to search the area, his sharingan evolved into the mangekyou, and keeping herself calm became more of a struggle, but Orochimaru had worked with her on the nights when the nightmares kept her from sleeping, relentlessly cataloguing her triggers and teaching her to compartmentalize. She had a feeling it wasn't the most mentally beneficial way of dealing with the aftermath of her experience in Kumo, but it had gotten her through the day, and very rarely had she gotten trapped in a flashback after the first few weeks. They hadn't thought to expose her to the sharingan, but it was just another thing to put on the list.

Once she felt fairly confident that the seal was working as intended, she dropped to the center of the clearing and deactivated it, letting her chakra free of the restraints she had placed on it.

"Did you catch sight of me?" she asked as Itachi joined her, deactivating his sharingan on the way.

"With the mangekyou, traces. But it was almost impossible to distinguish from natural chakra existing in nature. I don't know how it would stand up under the byakugan, with their ability to see through most genjutsus with ease." Itachi hesitated for a moment, and then asked carefully: "Did the sharingan bother you?"

Sakura considered lying, but Ikeda had once tried to pull the wool over Itachi's eyes,and they had all learned that even without his sharingan, Uchiha Itachi was obnoxiously adept at unearthing falsehoods. "I managed."

"You were remarkably resliant," he offered carefully, as if unsure how the statement might be taken. "While I did have minimal chakra, and attempted to make the tsukiyomi as gentle as possible, you put up a strong challenge. If you had had full chakra...you might have made it much more difficult for the genjutsu to take hold."

"Hatake Kakashi, who has a sharingan of his own, was in a coma for weeks before Senju Tsunade snapped him out of it, because of your mangekyou."

"Most people do not experience the mangekyou more than once," Itachi replied. Not daring to look at him, Sakura focused on removing the seal she had inked on earlier. "Before you, I only know of my brother, who had experienced it twice. But you had spent enough time in the genjutsu to sound out all of its weaknesses and get a feel for it. It would be interesting to test if it truly is an unbreakable genjutsu."

"Perhaps," Sakura allowed, not trusting herself to commit more than that. There was something to be said for throwing herself at the trigger, attempting to desensitize herself to it, but the lure of being the only person to be able to defeat the Uchiha's signature genjutsu was strong. "Can I think about it?"

"Of course."

 *****Sorry for the unexplained absence last weekend. We moved three weeks ago, and had family visit last week, and with all the preparations/unpacking, there was no way I was getting anything written. Updates should proceed on a weekly basis from here on though.*****


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen:**

"So, you're the little genin who spat in the face of the Raikage's interrogators."

Sakura continued her katas, moving slowly from one form to another until she reached the end of the sequence and restarted, picking up the pace. It was something both of her mentors had hammered into her: get the forms correct, and then add the speed. Another full repetition, and then she responded: "There was no spitting involved."

"Hyperbole, but it takes a lot for a genin to impress a Kage."

Unwilling to hold this conversation while continuing her katas, Sakura straightened as she completed the last movement. "Perhaps a Kage should watch their genin more often."

"Perhaps," the leader of the Kiri rebels laughed lightly from the bench she was perched on. "Or perhaps you're just special."

"Hardly," Sakura snorted, reaching for her water bottle. "I'm just your average shinobi with no clan affiliation."

"Over two weeks of determined interrogation, coupled with daily subjection to genjutsu cast by the sharingan is a great deal of resistance for someone under jounin level." Terumi Mei fixed Sakura with a curious stare. "It's something to catch anyone's attention."

"I got lucky, and was helped by the fact that the genjutsu was cast by someone with no interest in hurting me." With a polite tip of her head, Sakura turned to leave the training ground she had been using for her morning conditioning.

"Such exotic hair." Rolling her eyes, Sakura kept moving, until the next words stopped her in her tracks. "From a distance it looks blonde, until a trick of the light shows off the pink intermingled with the strands. It's not a common color."

"Neither is blue, but it seems to suit Kiri shinobi well," Sakura parried back, attempting to mimic Orochimaru's most disinterested tone. "Is Hoshigaki-san not blue all over? _That_ seems more exotic than something that can be easily obtained with a few ryo."

"You're a clever one, but I shouldn't be surprised. Gossip in the citadel suggests you apprenticed under Orochimaru of the Sannin, as well as Uchiha Itachi." Terumi laughed lightly as she strolled over to Sakura. "For you to be that well connected, there must be something about you."

"What do you want from me, Terumi-san," Sakura said coolly, tiring of the misdirection and intricacies of the conversation. "What made you seek me out?"

"There are very few kunoichi that make themselves a name outside of their own villages," Terumi said with a shrug. "Senju Tsunade. Chiyo of Suna. Me. It's a lonely group. You can't fault me for being interested in someone who might become a world name, especially when we're going to be neighbors."

"I'm not going to become headwoman," Sakura snorted. "No, you'll have to look elsewhere. The spotlight isn't something I aspire to."

"Shadow players are equally as important," the auburn haired woman said, examining her nails. "Chiyo of Suna never became Kazekage, but to this day, she's widely acknowledged as much of the influence behind the Kazekage's seat, regardless of the occupant."

"Advisor is unlikely," Sakura rolled her eyes. "It's better than my name stay out of things."

"Because Konoha might come trying to take you back?"

"That's...an interesting conclusion to draw," Sakura said slowly as she tried to fight the sudden surge of fear and adrenaline that coursed through her. "How did you come to it?"

"We happened across a Konoha team some time ago," Terumi shrugged. "They left their Bingo Book behind, and I took a look. You're not at an international level, but you've certainly made Konoha's list of missing-nin, Haruno Sakura."

"Shiroyami," she corrected firmly. "I'm not denying it," Sakura said flatly as Mei tipped her head inquiringly. "But the Haruno family belongs to Konoha. It's Shiroyami that belongs to Uzushio."

"The Raikage was rather embarrassed that he hadn't made the connection himself," Terumi said with a laugh. "Apparently there have been reports of the Toad Sage searching for his lost apprentice, and the Copy Nin's been in a state over _his_ missing students. At least, that's what the shinobi grapevine says. The theories everyone has...some say it's Ame, taking revenge for the Second War. Orochimaru and Oto are also popular. Or perhaps Iwa? The Copy Nin earned himself plenty of enemies by being the Yellow Flash's student. About the only country not suspected is Suna, since they're still scraping themselves off the ground after that nasty little failure."

"So, you think that because I have a lot of major players connected to me in mentoring roles, that I'm something special?" Sakura shrugged. "The Copy Nin couldn't be bothered to teach me more than tree walking, and even that was a failure. Uchiha Itachi was assigned to be my genin sensei."

"Uchiha and Orochimaru wouldn't still interact with you if there was nothing that piqued their interest," Terumi countered. "I want to know where you will fall on the board. Our countries are to be allies; if I join the ranks of your mentors, I will be assured a place in the mind of one of the kunoichi who will become critical to Uzushio in the next decade or so."

"What do you have to offer that I can't get from one of my current mentors?" Sakura turned to leave. "Sorry Terumi-sama, but I'm not interested."

"You have few enough female mentors," Terumi called after her. "Kunoichi always are outnumbered, and the numbers grow smaller as you move up the ranks. Men will never take you seriously, no matter how much you conform to their expectations."

"Is your apparel supposed to defy them?" Sakura commented, pausing again in her attempt to leave. "Remind them that you're a woman and a kunoichi?"

"You and the kitten think alike then, believing that by wearing a dress and letting my hair down makes me less than I could be if I wrapped myself in armor and standard shinobi outfits," Terumi snorted. "Challenge me then," she offered, moving to the center of the clearing and flicking her hair out of her way. "No hold barred, so long as you refrain from maiming or fatal wounds. I'll stick to taijutsu, so you should have no problem."

"And if I lose?"

"Help me set up a network of female shinobi," Terumi said lazily. "I don't want to turn you against your village, don't give me that look. But some of you are going to grow into powerful political figures, and I want more women on the scene. If you haven't noticed, all of the Kages to this point have been men, and look where they've left us."

"Fine," Sakura said, reaching for her chakra in the way her mentors had drilled into her, letting it merge seamlessly with the natural chakra so that it was nearly invisible as she spun the first layer of her genjutsu, altering things by only a hair. "Let's begin."

* * *

Tenten laughed at her as Sakura limped into the apartment, covered in dirt and leaves. "Did you pick a fight with a bush or something?"

"You laugh now," Sakura grumbled heading for the shower and stripping off her outer layers at the same time, "but you won't be laughing when you hear what you've just been signed up for."

"What, are you on an all consuming quest to become a jounin now?" Tenten asked, leaning in the bathroom doorway as Sakura stepped into the shower. "And I'm your new training partner?"

"We're apparently not womanly enough," the other girl informed her tartly over the noise of the running water. "So we're now taking extra lessons in how to look like a lady and still kick ass."

"Konan doesn't care, none of the kunoichi in the citadel do. Who have you gotten…?"

"I lost a bet," she grunted. "So no, I didn't do this on purpose. And when I ran into Orochimaru afterwards, he was sorry he didn't think of the idea himself, told me what would have been a very funny story about the time he and his former teammates all had to impersonate high society ladies, and then stalked off to plot with Terumi."

"Oh gods," Tenten made a sound that was an odd combination of a whimper and a laugh. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Very serious," Sakura shut off the shower, stuck her hand out from behind the curtain, and made vague gestures towards her towel, hanging out of reach on a peg near the door. Her brunette friend took pity on her and tossed it over. "Since I've got guard duty in...an hour, I had to cut the rest of my training short so I could shower and get something to eat before that, since I wasn't going to show up looking like I had just lost in a match tilted heavily in my favor."

"Why were you even betting on a match with Terumi anyway?"

"Because," Sakura snarled as she roughly toweled her hair dry. "I was baited. She limited herself to her taijutsu only, and I figured that it wouldn't be a problem without those bloodlines that everyone was talking about and my genjutsu. _Obviously_ I was wrong."

"She's Kage-level," Tenten reminded her unsympathetically. "We just made chuunin, and did you not listen to Naruto's stories about his bet with Tsunade-sama before she became Hokage?"

" _I was baited_."

"Aren't you supposed to be an assassin-in-training?" Karin grunted sleepily as she stumbled into the bathroom, rubbing her eyes. "I don't think a short fuse is something you should possess."

"Don't shrug this off," Sakura snapped, retreating to her room to dress. "You're caught up in it too."

"Because she's a kunoichi?" Tenten asked dryly.

"Because she's an Uzumaki," Sakura said flatly. Her next words were muffled as she tugged the lightweight long sleeved shirt that had become standard apparel for the shinobi who spent most of their day outside in the sun without sunscreen available. "Terumi wants to network with women who might become powerful next door neighbors."

"And you immediately thought of us?" Tenten looked surprised as Sakura brushed by her on the way to the kitchen and began raiding the cupboards.

"Karin's an Uzumaki, so there's no doubt she'll be powerful," Sakura muttered as she looked for the onigiri that she had hidden in the fridge the night before. "But you're setting yourself up to be a weapons mistress, which is going to be deadly. And I'm the assassin in training, as our roommate so kindly put it, which makes me someone she wants to know, apparently."

"What exactly is this going to entail?" the brunette asked warily.

"I have no idea. But we're invited to dinner tomorrow."

* * *

It was both better and worse than she had expected.

Terumi, who had instructed them to call her _Mei-san_ , had indeed joined up with Orochimaru. The pair had swept into the first floor of the Academy, which housed a makeshift dining hall that most of the shinobi used, since food was still fairly expensive and restaurants were non-existent, and gathered up Sakura and her roommates. Seated at one end of one of the long tables, they held court, discussing a kunoichi's role in a Hidden Village.

"You are both beautiful and deadly," Mei had stated firmly, eyes sweeping dismissively across their skeptical faces. "That is both your greatest burden, and your greatest asset."

"Even in nature, the most beautiful colors usually hide death in their beings," Orochimaru added, his hair pinned up into a bun, making his gender even more ambiguous with his preference for obscuring robes. "Why should shinobi be any different?"

Sakura had sat through two sets of kunoichi classes. Konoha's had focused on the niceties: flower arranging, tea ceremony, and the like. Uzushio had been practical, teaching them taijutsu adaptations, the best way of obscuring weapons under clothing… things that would bring them on even grounds with the shinobi, who biologically would most likely be larger and stronger than most kunoichi. Exceptions existed, and chakra augmentation often evened the playing field, but kunoichi and shinobi often differed in basic body type.

Mei and Orochimaru apparently had a third set of lessons to teach.

"Konoha taught you how to be a lady, how to blend in with the civilians flawlessly," her shishou lectured as Tenten and Sakura shrugged while Konan rolled her eyes. "Uzushio has taught you how to keep up with your peers. There is nothing wrong with being a kunoichi," he said sternly, catching that Sakura's attention was waning. She straightened, knowing that he was not against adding to her morning conditioning if he perceived he didn't have her full attention. "Too many young kunoichi spend years fighting against the perception that they are somehow lesser. They feel that it is something to be ashamed of, to make themselves more than."

"They are wrong," Mei said bluntly, tapping her finger against the table as she picked up seamlessly from where Orochimaru had left off. "You can be a legend and be a kunoichi. Just because you seek to move further in the ranks does not mean that you must abandon your femininity. Senju Tsunade has not. _I_ have not. Ringo Ameyuri, member of Kiri's Seven Swordsmen, did not."

"Unisex clothing is more practical than women's clothing," Tenten pointed out skeptically. "The range of movement is better…"

Mei waved her hand dismissively. "So what? If you wish to fight in a dress, repeat every taijutsu kata, every move you might ever make until you can move just as quickly in a dress as in a pair of leggings or shinobi pants. If you wish to fight in heels, teach yourself to run, jump, and climb in heels as high as you like. It is up to you, but with practice, you can wear whatever you like, so long as you're good enough to not let it hinder you."

They were dismissed not much later, without a date for their next lesson to occur. Back in their apartment, Sakura looked at the single mirror they had purchased from one of the first ships. It had taken their combined savings from what they had brought to Uzushio, money that had been left languishing in the bottom of their packs with nothing to purchase. But a mirror had been something they all wanted, worth paying almost every ryo they had for a rectangle of glass to hang over their bathroom sink.

Her hair had grown long again after cutting it during Konoha's chuunin exams. Lack of haircuts, combined with the growth spurt from her wild chakra outbursts during her imprisonment, had left it hanging at just about mid back when it was wet. Most of the time, she pulled it up into high ponytails or buns, occasionally leaving her bangs down to frame her face, the old sensitivities about her forehead size hard to shake.

"D'you think they were right," Tenten asked, peering over her shoulder and poking at her own hair, tightly coiled into buns during the waking hours. "About being pretty and being a kunoichi?"

"I mean, she did beat you in a spar you should have won," Karin pointed out, nudging Sakura with her elbow as she joined the other two in front of the mirror. "That's got to be a bit of proof."

"Shishou disguised himself as a Kusa kunoichi when he infiltrated the second exam," Sakura mused, pulling the hair tie out and letting her hair hang freely. "Trust me, he was certainly scary enough."

"He's also a sannin," Tenten muttered, before plucking out her own hair pins and laying them on the counter. "So that's a really big point in his favor."

"I don't like my hair down," Sakura commented after a long pause as all three of them watched Tenten's hair come tumbling down, wavy after being pinned up so long. "It reminds me too much of how I used to be?"

"Uchiha's fangirl?" the brunette asked, running her fingers through her own hair, tugging lightly as she wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, me neither. Didn't Uzumaki Mito wear her hair up in two buns?"

"There's a picture of her from her wedding day," Karin answered promptly. "Nagato started cataloguing everything that survived when the compound was destroyed. She wore her hair up in buns most of her adult life."

"I think she used to mostly wear kimonos too," Sakura added, trying to remember some of the pictures from Konoha's history books. "She didn't _look_ like a kunoichi, but if she was powerful enough to become the first jinchuuriki…?"

"And they can talk about clothes all they want, but we aren't getting paid more than enough to keep groceries in the apartment," Karin pointed out moodily as she pulled her hair up into various configurations. "They're not charging for electricity and water 'cause we're all broke, and we get free meals if we complete a certain number of missions per week. Eventually they'll have enough to start sending us out to complete real missions where we can earn more money, but until then, we're too broke to buy more than the standard shinobi uniforms and old clothes they sell at a discount."

"Maybe once the whole Kiri rebellion is settled?" Tenten looked hopeful.

"Wasn't there a rumor during the Konoha chuunin exams that the Yondaime Mizukage had been overthrown?" Sakura headed back out to the main room, tired of studying herself in the mirror when there was actually little she could do at the moment.

"Apparently that's when Mei and her merry band of rebels got ousted for good," Karin joined her, sitting around the table as Sakura moved to make a pot of tea. "They tried, and for a few days everyone thought that they might have succeeded, but then Kiri went completely dark and nobody knew what was going on. From what I've heard during my shifts in the administration building, Mei and the others were lucky to get out."

"Why?"

Karin snorted. "The Yondaime Mizukage's a jinchuuriki."

"Damn," Tenten breathed, sitting in her usual place as Sakura brought the teapot and mismatched cups over to the table. "How do you even go up against an adult? Naruto's strong enough, and Nii's stronger. She's not that much older than us."

"You'd need a jinchuuriki, but unfortunately for Kiri, their second jinchuuriki, who should be theoretically more powerful than the Mizukage because the number of tails is higher, left a while back and nobody's been able to track him down."

"Wish they put me in the administrative building more often," Sakura mumbled half-heartedly as she poured the tea. "I miss all the good information."

"I think... they want me to find him," Karin said slowly. "The only reason I know all of that is because they keep asking me about my range. Wanting to know how I find people, and what I need to know about them. There's been talk of sending a tracking squad to bring this missing jinchuuriki back to help with the rebellion, and maybe to help bolster relations the way Nii and Kumo's other jinchuuriki are helping boost our ties with Kumo. He's supposed to be older than Nii, which means he might be able to help train Naruto as well."

"That's a long mission," Tenten stared down into her cup. "And you don't know where you'll end up searching for him."

"Mainland, definitely," Sakura pointed out. "Mei and the other rebels have been mostly in Kumo, and the nearby countries, so he's probably somewhere to the west."

"Kusa probably hasn't gone looking for me," the redhead glared down at the table, fiddling with her glasses. "I wasn't that important to them, so I should be okay."

"If they send you, you better come back."

"I don't want to have to tell your cousin you've gone missing," Sakura pointed out, keeping her voice steady. "He'd probably end up storming every village he found until you turned up."

"What, none of you would?" Karin joked weakly.

"I would," the other girl replied quietly, meeting Karin's eyes. "I wouldn't wish what I went through on anyone."

* * *

The official mission was assigned three days later.

As she had suspected, Karin was sent, along with three of the older Kiri shinobi, Sasori, and Kyo. Sakura was on gate duty the day they left, and she hugged her roommate tightly.

"Come back safe," she whispered, forcing herself to let the redhead go. "Or we'll have to take the continent apart looking for you."

"You better," Karin said, false bravado in her voice.

"What, no touching goodbyes for us?" Kyo teased, coming up behind Karin as the redhead backed away from Sakura. "Don't worry Sakura-chan, we'll be back before you even have time to miss us."

"Keep working on your poisons." Sasori passed her without making a scene. "If anything interesting comes into port, you know what to do."

The team moved out, taking the road to the port Sakura and the first arrivals had used, letting them out in southern Hot Springs. It was the closest they could get to where Karin thought the jinchuuriki was, based on how he had been described to her by the few Kiri shinobi that Mei had dragged to meet her.

As gate guard, Sakura was well within her right to watch them go, setting a steady pace as they headed for the ship that would land on the mainland after dusk, slipping silently into port in case there were any watchers looking for the shinobi that had disappeared in the past year.

"They're going to come back," Suigetsu said, startling Sakura. She had forgotten he was there, her partner for this shift. Glancing over, she saw that he was watching the group leave as well. But he looked away and met her eyes with a sharp grin. "Karin's too violent to let anyone stop her from coming back, and she's downright scary when you try to keep her from someone she cares about."

"I'm honestly terrified for the first person to get between her and Naruto, when all of this comes to the attention of the major countries," Sakura shivered. "Hopefully whoever Konoha sends is fast and good at not getting caught by seals, because I think all of the original Uzushio shinobi figure she's going to be the best fuuinjutsu mistress of all of us."

Suigetsu smirked. "To each their own. Hoshigaki-senpai retrieved one of the Seven from Wave, and so long as he's still willing, I'll be like my brother and become a member of the Swordsmen."

"What about Kiri?"

The smirk disappeared from his face, and he spat on the ground. "Kirigakure lost my loyalty the day it turned its back on my brother. Terumi knew him, and her failed revolution got him killed. None of them did anything to try and rescue him when the Yondaime came for him, and they almost came for me as well, but I managed to get out in time. I'll fight to free Kiri from that psychopath, but not for Terumi. I've chosen Uzushio, and it's with her my loyalties lie."

Take aback by the vehemence in his voice, Sakura could only nod.

* * *

There was no time to dwell on Karin's departure.

Itachi brought her to a meeting one night, held in the empty basements of the research building, in a room that was probably supposed to hold top secret records, based on the security the Uchiha bypassed to get them into the room.

Inside was a bare table, and around it sat Nagato, her grandmother, Konan, Terumi, and Orochimaru. Two empty chairs sat waiting for them.

"The information you're about to receive goes no further than this room," her grandmother warned as Sakura took her seat between Itachi and Orochimaru. "If you can't keep your word, leave now."

Nobody moved.

"We believe the Yondaime Mizukage to be trapped under a genjutsu," Terumi said coolly, none of the laid-back, confident woman in her manner. This was the woman who had rallied Kiri's dissonants, and would one day take the Kage's hat. "A powerful one, to hold a jinchuuriki."

Sakura exchanged a look with Itachi. "Only a genjutsu cast by the sharingan can hold a jinchuuriki," she murmured slowly.

"There was a man who approached us," Nagato gestured to himself and Konan. "After the second war, before Yahiko was murdered. He claimed to be Uchiha Madara. After...we sought Madara out. That was when Akatsuki was restructured into the organization it became."

"Uchiha Madara assisted with the massacre of the Uchiha clan," Itachi added, each word sounding as if it had been dragged out of him. "He spoke with me at the Nakano Shrine."

"He's too young to be the same man!" Sakura protested, looking between the occupants of the table. "Your Madara can't be any older than the sannin, and that's too young for it to be the original Uchiha Madara."

"So we have an imposter," Orochimaru concluded, steepling his fingers. "The question is, how did he gain access to a sharingan?"

"There are no Uchiha missing-nin outside of my brother and I, and there are no other living Uchiha," Itachi's voice was firm. "As heir, I had access to all of the clan records. After Madara approached me, I investigated, just in case."

"Unlikely as it seems, we have to accept that he is quite possibly the true Uchiha Madara," Sakura's grandmother glanced around the table. "But he is not the threat we have gathered to discuss. Our utmost priority when we move on Kiri must be freeing the Yondaime from the genjutsu and preventing the need for a new host for the Sanbi."

"What will happen to him once he is freed, assuming we manage to do so?"

Terumi answered Nagato's question with a tone that brooked no argument. "I will become the Godaime Mizukage. While Yagura may not have been fully in control, he is still responsible in the eyes of the people for the hellhole that our country has become. They will not accept his continued rule if we lead a successful revolution."

"You have been called here because of your skills with genjutsu," Sakura straightened her spine as her grandmother looked at Nagato, Orochimaru, Itachi, and then finally at her. "If we are to stop Yagura by breaking the genjutsu, all of you will need to work together to find a solution. We are lucky to have an Uchiha among us upon whom we can call upon for practice."

"Will you help Kiri?" Terumi took over the conversation. "You are the foundations of a squad that could turn the tide in our favor when we move against Yagura."

"I will help," Nagato said quietly, his rinnegan eyes determined as he looked towards Terumi. "I don't know what my eyes will do against a genjutsu cast by the sharingan, but we will have to learn."

"My sharingan will certainly help," Itachi murmured. "We'll have to figure out a way to simulate conditions we might find."

"You'll need my experiences," Sakura cut in firmly. "I'm the only person who has been under multiple exposures to the Tsukiyomi."

"There is nothing I like more than a new experiment," Orochimaru nodded his agreement as he crossed his arms over his chest. "You have my interest."

 *****Sorry about the late update. Yesterday got fairly busy on me, and I didn't have time to post it until now. Also, I've decided spur of the moment to do Camp NaNo with another project, so updates from now on might get a bit sporadic, but I'll try to keep pace.*****


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen:**

"I was gone for a month," Karin said flatly as she took in the state of Sakura's room from the doorway. "What the hell happened?"

Looking up from where she was busy studying the notes she had inked onto the wall, Sakura grinned. "Hey, you're back. Did you find Kiri's missing jinchuuriki?"

"Obviously," the redhead sniffed, moving further into the room. "Why are your walls covered in anatomical diagrams of the brain and about ten different concept maps and three flow charts?" She studied the walls more closely. "And why are they in some sort of cipher?"

"I've gotten roped into a specialty squad for the Kiri rebellion," Sakura explained, leaning back so that she could get a better look at the schedule she had written on the ceiling. "And I'm too cheap to buy paper _and_ writing utensils, so I settled for ink and a brush and my walls make a fair canvas."

"Aren't you a little concerned that someone could sneak in and steal your notes?"

"Not really," Sakura grunted, pushing herself upright and reaching for the ink and brush sitting next to her. "The cipher's completely self-crafted, and I'm being vague on purpose. Besides, when I'm not trying, it's hard to follow my thought process, or so I was told early on in the Academy."

As she added a note to one of her diagrams, Karin asked: "Anything else interesting happen while we were gone?"

"Not really. Hoshigaki sent word from Kumo that Naruto's learning a lot, and they expect to be in Kumo up until a few weeks before we move on Kiri. Apparently your cousin is thrilled that Kumo has ramen stands."

Snorting, Karin headed for her own room, and Sakura could hear her putting away her things. "Hey, Sasori-senpai gave me a couple of tips about how to work on my chakra chains, but he said that Kakuzu-san might be able to help me more, since chakra strings for puppetry are completely different."

"Really? That's great!" Tipping her head back, Sakura looked at the list on the ceiling, her personal to-do list before they could move against Yagura.

First on the list?

 _Become jounin_.

* * *

"You don't have to actually reach jounin rank," Itachi had told her as they sparred one morning not long after what Sakura was calling the genjutsu squad had been formed. "It's really more about you having skills equal to a tokubetsu jounin, so everyone feels more comfortable pitting you against a jinchuuriki. Besides, your specialization in genjutsu to keep your place on the squad will most likely earn your rank on its own."

"Other than specialized genjutsu," Sakura slipped out of his way as he tried to knock her off her feet. "What benchmarks do I need to hit?"

"You have experience with jinchuuriki," Itachi said calmly, countering her attempt to prick him with the senbon hidden in her closed fist. Normally they would have been dipped in something nasty that she had learned from one of her mentors, but for a spar it wasn't worth the trouble. "What do you think you need to be ready for this fight?"

"A jinchuuriki will always have greater reserves and better stamina," Sakura grunted as one of his hits connected. "I'm not going to be able to outlast them. Hatake trained your brother exclusively in speed and a one-shot assassination jutsu to face the Ichibi. Right now I'm faster than Sasuke was, but more speed wouldn't be a bad thing. Stamina in general should always be increased whenever possible."

Pausing for a moment to remove herself from Itachi's immediate reach, she continued: "We're also going in for the purpose of breaking a genjutsu. So, Yagura needs to either be knocked out or otherwise kept from interfering with the process. I doubt that he'll sit still and let us break the genjutsu, just as I doubt that we'll simply be able to disrupt his chakra or knock him out and that will be it."

"We should probably try putting someone under Tsukiyomi, and then knocking them out to see if it works," Itachi noted, reaching for shuriken. "Worth an experiment."

"So, barring that, we need a way to hold a jinchuuriki." Sakura chose not to address the fact that someone would have to suffer the genjutsu, and continued scheming. "Perhaps a seal?"

"My mother once mentioned that an Uzumaki was capable of manifesting chakra chains capable of holding even a biju."

"Karin's working on them, but she hasn't been able to manifest them yet."

"I'll tell the others, and they may be able to see if we can't find someone with a similar jutsu or kekkei genkai," Itachi signalled that their spar was at an end and motioned for her to join him in the middle of the clearing. "But we need to talk about you for a moment."

"We need to decide whether or not I'm going to learn if it's possible to break the Tsukiyomi as a victim of it." Sakura sat cross legged on the ground in front of him. "But we're going to set some ground rules."

A brief flash of surprise crossed the Uchiha's face, but he sat across from her. "What rules?"

"We do this here, in a training ground, or in the research building," Sakura said flatly, digging her fingers into the dirt. "Whatever we can get that is far from a dungeon as we can. And I want shishou and a third party present."

"Seems fair enough," Itachi conceded. "When are we starting?"

"Tomorrow afternoon?" Itachi nodded, and Sakura stretched her legs out in front of her in preparation for the run that always finished her morning training sessions.

* * *

Sakura lounged against the door of the council room, nominally on guard, but her presence, along with Suigetsu's, was mostly for show. Considering that the council had lined the room liberally with privacy seals, there was no need to worry about eavesdroppers. But it was an easy shift, and the council only met in full once per week, so Sakura didn't bother complaining. Instead, she tried to schedule her sessions with Itachi and Orochimaru to work on breaking Tsukiyomi before her shifts at the administrative building whenever possible.

This day was no different from the rest. They had made no measurable progress in breaking the genjutsu from within, and all Sakura had to show for it was a headache and chakra depletion. At least the panic that had been constant for the first two weeks after they began had subsided, leaving only a faint sense of unease in its wake.

Suigetsu had stopped raising an eyebrow as she showed up with a water bottle and a snappy attitude and just let her be unless she was open to making conversation.

A voice from below made them both straighten, snapping to attention. There were no footsteps, but that was hardly unusual for the shinobi in the citadel. Sakura narrowed her eyes, trying to pinpoint who the voice belonged to based on the distorted echoes from the stairwell. It was a woman's voice, she was fairly certain, and one who was irritated, but that was all that she could make out.

Kakuzu came into sight, and Sakura's jaw almost dropped. Tucked under his arm like a bundle was a green haired woman, doing her best to either kick him or gouge him with her nails. Remembering her duty, Sakura knocked on the council room's door and waited.

When the command came, she poked her head inside and announced: "Kakuzu-san returned from his mission and wishes to report immediately." It wasn't something he had actually _said_ , but given that his captive was awake and kicking, she figured that it was important the council speak with them.

"Send him in," her grandmother ordered, exchanging looks with the other council members.

Holding the door open, Sakura allowed the former Akatsuki member to enter, and then slipped out and let the door close behind her. As soon as it did, she and Suigestu were glued to the cracks, ears pressed against the wood in an attempt to hear what was going on, assuming that the privacy seals weren't activated.

They weren't.

" _Put me down_ ," the woman insisted, and then there was a slight thud. Either she had gotten her way, or she had landed a blow on Kakuzu.

"I found her in Hot Springs," the former missing-nin explained shortly. "Given the circumstances, I figured it best not to let her wander alone."

There was a sigh, and then Sakura heard her grandmother's voice. "Fu of Takigakure, jinchuuriki of the nanabi, I believe?"

"Who wants to know?" the woman's voice was wary, not that Sakura blamed her. From the little Kakuzu had said, he probably abducted the girl without explaining at all.

"Don't fret, we're not in the business of kidnapping jinchuuriki." A pause, and Sakura heard muffled snickering. Not that she could blame the person laughing, since that was essentially what had happened to Naruto, not that he minded. "There is a rogue shinobi looking to kidnap the jinchuuriki, strip them of their biju, and use the biju to enforce 'peace'. Unfortunately, because of the need for secrecy while our village is rebuilt, we have not been able to spread this information very far. Kakuzu brought you here so that we could inform you, and offer you a safe haven if you so wish."

"Where are we?"

"The citadel of Uzushio, originally destroyed during the second war, but we have returned to rebuild it. Due to the seals in the surrounding walls, at present, only those with an escort can enter if they are not an Uzushio shinobi."

"I'm not going to tie myself to a village." Sakura could hear the defiance in the woman's voice, and was surprised that she hadn't already wrecked the room, being a jinchuuriki in a potentially dangerous place. "I may have left my village, but I'm not looking for another one."

"Our offer is not conditional on you becoming an Uzushio shinobi," one of the other council members spoke calmly. "At the moment, our own jinchuuriki is in Kumo, training with the Hachibi, and Kumo's second jinchuuriki, the Nibi, is visiting, along with the Rokubi's jinchuuriki. All of them are welcome here if they feel in danger, since none offering harm to the jinchuuriki will be able to enter."

"There are _four_ jinchuuriki that might be here, at any given time?" The awe in the woman's voice had an almost desperate tinge to it. "And nobody _minds_?"

"Uzushio was the reason why jinchuuriki were created in the first place. It would be hypocritical of us to scorn your sacrifice." The eldest council member's voice was scornful, but Sakura could tell that it was directed at other villages, not at the woman Kakuzu had found. "Now, we understand if you do not feel comfortable staying here, but you are always welcome, should you need a sanctuary."

"One of our chuunin will show you to a place where you can stay for the night," another of the council members said briskly. "No ships leave from port until tomorrow morning, but you should be able to get passage to most places along the sea, if you desire. Shiroyami?"

Suigetsu twitched back into place on the other side of the door frame as Sakura waited the ten seconds that would make it less obvious that she had been eavesdropping before opening the door.

"Shiroyami, this is Fu of Takigakure," her grandmother pronounced, allowing the charade that Sakura and Suigetsu hadn't been eavesdropping at the door. "Take her to the guest quarters in the second circle, and introduce her to Utakata and Nii."

"Of course," Sakura murmured with a polite bow. "Fu-san, if you would follow me?"

The woman, free from Kakuzu's grip, was about Sakura's height, and somewhere between her own age and Nii's, if Sakura's guess was any good. She seemed somewhat shellshocked as she followed Sakura down the stairs and out into the square before the administration building.

"How come nobody knows about this place?" she suddenly demanded, looking around at the shinobi and civilians bustling about. "Nobody ever mentioned a village called Uzushio."

"It was destroyed decades ago, and abandoned until about two years ago, when we came home," Sakura explained, waving cheerfully to one of her chuunin gate guard partners. "We've been working hard to bring ourselves back to our former state, and we've been quiet about it."

"But you have one of Kumo's jinchuuriki here," the woman prodded as they slid through the mostly empty neighborhoods in the third circle by the research building. "And one of Kiri's."

"Kumo found out by accident, and we ended up signing a treaty with them," Sakura explained as vaguely as she could. "The Kiri rebellion is preparing to strike against the Yondaime Mizukage, and they've made a deal that allows them to temporarily shelter here. Our jinchuuriki is currently studying under the Hachibi in Kumo at the moment, or you would be able to meet him."

"And nobody minds?"

Sakura shrugged. "Uzumaki Mito, daughter of one of the former headmen and wife to the Shodai Hokage, became the first jinchuuriki when she sealed the Kyuubi no Kitsune within herself. Uzushio's sealmasters developed the seals that she used, and used them to ensnare the remaining biju in order to parcel them out to the nations. Your existance as a jinchuuriki is a result of our forefathers' work. It would be in poor taste to scorn you for a decision made for you by those in power, especially when we gave them the tools to do so."

As Fu was still looking at her as if she had grown multiple heads, Sakura shrugged. "Besides, my former genin teammate is our jinchuuriki, and he's the least menacing person you could ever meet, so long as you're not trying to hurt something he feels is precious. You're more likely to die from over consumption of ramen around him than you are from the Kyuubi."

A glimpse of blonde hair drew her eye, and Sakura waved. "Nii-san, there's someone I want you to meet."

Motioning for the Kumo shinobi that was accompanying her to stay where he was, the Nibi jinchuuriki crossed the street to join Sakura. "I'm Nii Yugito, of Kumogakure," she introduced, holding out her hand for Fu to shake. "Nice to meet you."

"Fu of Takigakure," the younger woman replied, eyes wide. "Jinchuuriki of the Nanabi."

Nii's eyes widened. "I'm the jinchuuriki of the Nibi," she murmured. "Come find me some morning, and we'll spar. And talk; you're the only other female jinchuuriki that we know of."

"I'm not sure if I'm going to stay," Fu hedged.

With a shrug, Nii returned to her fellow Kumo shinobi. "I'll be here for a while, and if I'm not, I'll be in Kumo. Come find me sometime."

Continuing, Sakura entered the building that most of their foreign, high profile visitors were staying in. "It's nothing special," she explained to a slightly awestruck Fu who was trailing behind. "We're still a bit short on luxuries. But the water and electricity work. You can purchase food at the market down by the port, or you can purchase a meal at the Academy, where they serve during conventional mealtimes. Whatever works for you. If you decide to leave, you'll need to stop at the visitor's bureau, right inside the gates to sign out. When you return, if you choose to, give the gate guards your name and tell them that you're a jinchuuriki. That will get you inside the walls, which is the safest place on the island if you're in danger. We'll handle the rest after you're inside."

"The Academy you mentioned, where's that?"

"Oh," Sakura chuckled sheepishly. "It's on the seaward side of the administration building, where Kakuzu brought you. Most people still eat there, so it's hard to miss. If you want, you can leave your things here while we go look for Utakata."

"Kiri's jinchuuriki?" Fu set down the scroll she had been carrying in a corner of the living room of the apartment that she had been assigned. With no inns, the standard procedure for hosting important visitors was to find the next empty room in the building and assign it to the latest visitor. When she returned to the administrative building, Sakura would let one of the administrative shinobi know which room Fu had been assigned to.

"One of them," Sakura agreed, showing the other woman out the door. Karin had gate duty at the moment; it would be easy for her to find Utakata, and Sakura could pass along the news of Kakuzu's return, since he had been away when the redhead had returned with Kiri's wayward jinchuuriki and his apprentice.

Utakata was meditating on a quiet stretch of the shoreline with a view of the port. As they approached, he opened his eyes with a slight smile. "Another jinchuuriki to join the fun?" he asked as he rose. "Utakata of Kiri, jinchuuriki of the Rokubi."

"Fu of Takigakure, jinchuuriki of the Nanabi."

"I'll leave you to it then," Sakura said cheerfully. "If you need any help or directions, ask at the gate, or any of the shinobi with Uzushio hitai-ites. They should be able to help, or direct you to someone who can."

If she hurried, she could get the information on where Fu was staying to the administrative shinobi and still make it to her training session with Orochimaru with time to spare.

* * *

Fu left after a week, saying that she might be back in the future. But she wasn't interested in joining the odd conglomeration of shinobi that gathered within Uzushio's walls.

Sakura couldn't blame here. From the small amounts of time she had spent with the other female jinchuuriki, she noticed that while Fu was wandering from her village, she hadn't completely severed her ties with them. While Kiri's rebels were based in Uzushio for the time being, it was clear that they would be leaving once the Yondaime Mizukage was overthrown. And Nii Yugito and her squad would return to Kumo as soon as Naruto and his team returned. But for a shinobi, even a jinchuuriki, that was still affiliated with their village, a village that didn't know Uzushio existed, it would be difficult to accept staying a long period of time in the citadel.

She had made a bit of progress, working on breaking the Tsukiyomi. Itachi had been forced to struggle to keep the genjutsu active, and he was no longer showing her pleasant scenes, if the lead up to the massacre could be called pleasant. No, she was undergoing the full brunt of the torture that the sharingan was famed for, but holding her own.

They had made an interesting discovery that Sakura's genjutsus could be amplified and enhanced through creative use of seals, made strong and subtle enough that even the sharingan struggled to discern them. She was teaching herself to draw them on the battlefield, coordinating her movements to etch the required seals into the ground before slipping her chakra through the earth to bring them to life. It wouldn't help her break the genjutsu they believed the Mizukage was under, but it might help them gain enough time to break the genjutsu.

Sasori had been correct in suggesting Kakuzu as a mentor for Karin's chakra chains. By the time Fu left, Karin had managed to manifest the chains, and she progressed quickly. Nii agreed to be a practice target for one afternoon, and they tested the ability of the chains to hold a jinchuuriki. Sakura was unsurprised when, after a test where Karin successfully held a transformed Nii at bay, the redhead joined the squad being formed for the takedown of the Mizukage.

It was more interesting to have one of her yearmates as part of the squad, which had previously been dominated by names Sakura had first learned about in her textbooks, and later from Bingo Books. At the very least, it gave her someone to commiserate with, but also added an element of competitiveness. Sakura hated being left behind, and adding someone at her level made her push herself further.

* * *

As she was leaving Orochimaru's office one afternoon after a planning session, Sakura heard a muffled grunt of pain, so soft that she almost ignored it. But she turned back, and saw her shishou leaning awkwardly against the window frame, arms hanging awkwardly at his side in a way she hadn't seen since the early days of his arrival at the citadel.

Narrowing her eyes, she did a quick mental calculation. "Shishou, the Sandaime's seal is hurting you again, isn't it?"

"Clever as always, Shiroyami," he muttered irritably before seating himself. "But the remedy for this is not something that's easily come by."

"It makes no sense to move on Kiri with you half-crippled," she said bluntly, crossing her arms over her chest as she moved to stand in front of his desk. "Tell me how to help, and I'll ask for a mission."

"They'll never grant it," he waved his hand dismissively. "It's too dangerous."

"Shishou, if there's a way to undo the seal the Sandaime placed on you, we should try it. This is a community renowned for its fuuinjutsu knowledge. Surely there's something we can do to even the odds?"

"The removal of the seal itself isn't the dangerous part, Shiroyami." Orochimaru turned to look out the window, his eyes far away. "It's the location that I must go to in order to undo what the Sandaime did."

"Where?"

"The Uzumaki Mask Shrine, on the outskirts of Konohagakure, where it was built after the village was founded in honor of Uzumaki Mito and her heritage."

Sakura understood his hesitance. Konoha, and the Land of Fire, were no-go zones for any of the former Konoha shinobi. If there was a mishap like the one in Kumo, it would be disastrous, mostly because of Naruto. Itachi and Orochimaru were high profile targets as well, but Uzushio's possession of the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, regardless of his heritage, could be considered an act of war. A war none of them could afford.

Choosing her words carefully, Sakura attempted one last time to sway his mind. Her shishou had proven that his lack of jutsus did not diminish his capabilities as a shinobi. But she could see, now that she was looking for it, the way his arms had begun to decay, and other than transferring to a new body, which would be against the terms of his acceptance in the citadel, there was no way to reverse the damage the Sandaime had wrought. "Shishou, you managed to successfully infiltrate the village multiple times without being detected. Surely, with my help, you would be able to enter this shrine, which is probably long abandoned, since I haven't heard of it before?"

"I will speak to the council," he said heavily, after a long moment. "But if we are given the permission to go, we will delay until Hoshigaki's squad returns from Kumo."

Biting back the questions that lept to the tip of her tongue, Sakura bowed her head and left the office. If there was one thing she learned, being the snake sannin's apprentice, it was that he disclosed information in his own time. The concession of speaking with the council would have to suffice, even if she would be talking with Kabuto in an attempt to figure out a way to slow the decay of Orochimaru's arms to give him time. But she knew that it depended on her. Naruto would not return from Kumo until they were ready to assist in the overthrow of the Mizukage, and they would not move against Yagura until they had a way to break tsukiyomi.

* * *

Kneeling on the ground of her favorite training ground, Sakra bared her teeth in a grin that seemed almost feral. Across from her, Itachi seemed impassive, but she could see the glint of approval in his eyes as she unclenched her fingers from where they had dug into the earth.

"Again," she spat, adrenaline running high, the taste of victory making her greedy for more. "Once more."

"I take it this was an unplanned exit?" Orochimaru asked from where he leaned against a tree, watching as Karin and Utakata worked on her chakra chains.

Itachi's sharingan spun, and Sakura let herself slip into the jutsu, confident that _she_ would be controlling their exit.

It was easy, now that she had the feel of it. Easy to find the seams and cracks of the genjutsu, the little bit that no genjutsu was without, to compartmentalize her own instinctive reactions to the promised 72 hours of torture while she worked to shatter it. Perhaps it was her inner self, the one that had manifested with such aggression during Ino's mind transfer, that made it possible for her to create that distance, to set it aside when even hardened shinobi were left defenseless against it. Whatever the cause, she welcomed it, embraced it as she took the mental equivalent of a delicate chisel to the tiny cracks in tsukiyomi and shattered it into a million pieces.

They weren't completely to the point where she could wield it against Yagura. She had yet to try removing the genjutsu from another person, but it was another step forward. Another point in their favor when they would face off against a jinchuuriki under the control of someone calling himself Uchiha Madara.

"We'll be ready to move on to the next stage tomorrow," she answered Orochimaru as she came out of the genjutsu again. "Hopefully we can find a willing test dummy."

"I think that might have to be me," Utakata said calmly from where Karin had him pinned against the ground with her chains. "Since I am the closest thing we have to Yagura on hand, and I doubt Nii would be interested."

"Perhaps we should start with someone who doesn't have a biju in their head?" Itachi suggested as he got to his feet and stretched. "To ensure that we don't have any accidents?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Sakura snarked as she stood. "I'm the first person to break tsukiyomi, and you don't even have faith in me."

Itachi rolled his eyes at her and poked her in the center of her forehead. "Perhaps I simply wish to keep you from feeling over-pressured."

"I'll do it then," Karin volunteered, releasing Utakata. "I'm normal enough, aren't I?"

"Tomorrow," Orochimaru said firmly, before gathering the scrolls he had brought with him to the training ground, but never touched since he ended up coaching Karin and Utakata while observing Itachi and Sakura. "We do not want to risk failure due to over exhaustion."

 *****My apologies for the late update.*****


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen:**

Konoha's walls in the distance brought a sense of nostalgia with them.

Sakura kept pace with Orochimaru, the snake sannin leading them carefully to the long-abandoned Uzumaki mask shrine. Behind them, Naruto and Karin are murmuring quietly, the redhead monitoring their surroundings for signs of any lurking shinobi that would raise the alarm. His face a carefully blank mask, Itachi brought up the rear.

It's a brazen challenge for the five of them to draw close to the hidden village that four of them had called home once. Reckless and foolhardy the council had called it, but they had allowed the mission. The unrestrained power of a sannin, especially when about to make a move that may very well drive Uchiha Madara out of the shadows where he had been lurking, was a heavy enticement.

There was a wistful note in Naruto's voice as he looked towards the walls, but he kept moving as Orochimaru's path starts to slide away from them, down what was probably once a neat path, but had been since abandoned. Sakura knows that somewhere within those walls, her parents are probably at home, Ino and the rest of Team 10 are relaxing after a long day of missions and training, and her former sensei is probably reading his porn. Part of her wants to go to her parents, explain why she left the way she did, and maybe even ask why her mother ignored the call of Uzushio, or why she didn't hear it at all.

Ino is probably furious with her, she knows, and the thought draws a wry grin from her. Maybe someday she'll come back in the daylight, be able to explain and get explanations, mend bridges that she had broken in her desperate search for _home_.

But now there is only the task that had brought them so close to danger, and as a shadowy mass looms up out of the darkness, Sakura found herself on edge. Her shishou hadn't explained exactly how he would undo the seal the Sandaime had placed on his arms, on his ninjutsu, but hopefully it would all be explained soon enough.

"The Uzumaki mask shrine," he said softly, gesturing to the dilapidated building in front of them. "Uzumaki Mito brought little with her, but Senju Hashirama insisted that this be built, as a tribute to her and her people. It has been forgotten now, even by her own descendents."

"What's the significance?" Karin asked as Naruto seemed content to gaze at the ruined building in awe. "Why the masks?"

"Of all their peculiar sealing abilities," Orochimaru murmured as he carefully entered the building. "The Uzumaki managed to summon the shinigami. _Shiki Fuujin_ , they called it, and it has only been used twice, to my knowledge. Both times against formidable enemies, by formidable men."

"The Sandaime used it to seal your ninjutsu, didn't he?" Sakura hurried after her shishou, hearing Naruto and Karin follow behind. It was a clear night, and the moonlight filtering through the broken roof was enough to guide them to the central room.

Studying the array of masks upon the wall, Orochimaru nodded in the direction of one of them. "That one if you please, Shiroyami?"

Reaching up, Sakura carefully brought down the mask he had indicated. "What now, shishou?"

"When I wear this mask, the shinigami will possess me. By opening its stomach, the souls it had consumed will be released, though at the expense of a similar wound being dealt to myself. The four bounties we have collected will have to be laid out in advance and bound until they are used in Edo Tensai."

"You're reviving the souls?" Karin asked sharply, adjusting her glasses. "Why?"

"Because two of you will have questions for three of them," the sannin replied shortly. "Uchiha, the sacrifices, if you please? Shiroyami, Uzumaki, stand by to support me and speed the healing process as needed."

Obediently, Sakura took her place an arms' length away from her shishou, Karin mimicking her as needed. Itachi withdrew the seal they had trapped the four missing-nin that they had collected, with bounties so small Kakuzu approved of their use here instead of being turned in for the rewards. A burst of smoke, and they were arrayed on the floor, Itachi and Naruto keeping them in place and silent.

With a bit of a dramatic flare, ruined slightly by the grimace of pain that Sakura now associated with the sannin using his arms, Orochimaru donned the mask, and immediately the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. There was something _other_ in the room with them, the temperature seeming to drop. Orochimaru let out a grunt, and his arms dropped to protect his midsection as blood slowly damped the cloth covering it. But he recovered, sped through a sequence of handsigns, and then a complicated binding array appeared on the floor, entrapping their captives.

Slowly, the individual features of each shinobi reshaped themselves into four familiar visages, ones that had watched over every hour of her day for thirteen years.

"May I present to you the four past Hokages of Konoha?" Orochimaru asked slyly. "Senju Hashirama, Senju Tobirama, Sarutobi Hiruizen, and Namikaze Minato?"

"What have you done Orochimaru?" the Sandaime growled as Sakura moved to support her shishou, automatically calling up healing chakra as she reached for his wound. He allowed it without a fuss, smirking at his former sensei.

"I wished to have use of my ninjutsu again," he replied simply. "I find myself a poor shinobi without it, and my village agrees."

"Your village?" the Sandaime hissed, and Sakura watched as his eyes flicked up to the hitai-ite her shishou was wearing proudly, the same hitai-ite they were all wearing. "That- it _can't_ be…"

"Uzushio?" the Yondaime asked, eyes fixed on Naruto for some reason. "But Uzushio was _destroyed_. When Kushina came to Konoha."

"Destroyed?" Hashirama looked appalled. "How? And who are you?"

"Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage," the blond introduced himself cheerfully.

"Yondaime? The village persisted to have a Yondaime?"

Sheepishly, Namikaze rubbed the back of his head, the movement familiar for some reason. "I actually died before the Sandaime."

"Senju Tsunade is the Godaime Hokage at the moment," Orochimaru interrupted. It was interesting to watch the facial expressions that the Shodaime displayed, but before he could open his mouth, the Nidaime cut in.

"How and when was Uzushio destroyed?"

"During the second war," Sakura replied coolly. "By Kirigakure. Konoha couldn't be bothered to even bury the dead." After a brief pause, she added: "For context, the third war ended over fifteen years ago."

The Sandaime flinched, and looked at her for the first time. "You're...but...why are all of you wearing Uzushio hitai-ites?"

"She's definitely an Uzumaki," the Yondaime pointed out, tearing his gaze away from Naruto for the first time to gesture at Karin. "I mean, she looks just like Kushina. With glasses, of course."

Karin sniffed and adjusted her glasses. " _Obviously_ ," she drawled. "And I've been told there's a resemblance."

"How did all of you end up wearing a hitai-ite from a destroyed village?" the Sandaime persisted. "Especially since I _know_ four of you were Konoha shinobi."

"Technically, until approximately three years ago, only _two_ of us were Konoha shinobi and the other two were missing-nin," Sakura said pleasantly. "But, really, couldn't we say that Itachi was just on a deep cover mission?"

If it was possible for a resurrected shinobi to pale, Sarutobi did.

"Stand down Shiroyami," Itachi said firmly. "I can fight my own battles."

"I'm just expressing my personal feelings," she grumbled, but subsided obediently. Orochimaru's wound was healed now, although the area would be tender for a time. Taking her place at her shishou's shoulder, she was surprised to see the Yondaime look at her.

"Shiroyami...any relation to Shiroyami Nanami?"

"My grandmother."

At this point, Naruto broke his silence. "You...you knew my _mom_?"

The Yondaime turned to look at him, and the pieces fell into place. She had grown so used to seeing Naruto in the company of Karin and Nagato, seeing the Uzumaki traits in him, but now that they were in the same room, she could see the resemblance.

"Uzumaki Kushina was my wife," the Yondaime said warmly. "Oh Naruto, I'm so happy to see you've grown up well."

Naruto, living up to his status as unpredictable, sucker punched his father.

Tuning out the family bickering, Sakura watched as Itachi drifted over to look at the Sandaime, but something about the way they faced each other made her feel as if she was intruding. While she had seen the lead up to the massacre and the aftermath, she could not be full witness to all of Itachi's emotions, although she had a fair grasp on what they probably had been. So she drifted away, towards the Senju brothers who were observing the scene bemusedly. Or, at least Hashirama was bemused, Tobirama seemed to be studying the interactions.

"You never explained how four former Konoha shinobi ended up wearing a destroyed village's hitai-ite," the Nidaime said quietly as she drew within the appropriate range for quiet conversation.

"She called us home," Sakura said simply. "The older shinobi, the ones who somehow escaped the fall of the citadel because they were away on missions, it was obvious that they would return. But the rest of us, those of us who had never seen her...we were _born_ to be Uzushio shinobi. And when she called, we came, no matter what."

"That boy is the Kyuubi jinchuuriki," Tobirama said pointedly. "How did you convince Konoha to let him go?"

" _That boy_ is Uzumaki Naruto, and I suggest you never let his cousin hear you refer to him like that," Sakura snapped. "If he had stayed in Konoha he would have become Hokage, and right now it's a tough call on which one of those two will end up as head of the Uzumaki clan in the future. And he _left_. They chewed him up and did their best to break his spirit because of the burden he bore for him, so when Uzushio called, he went home. Konoha had no say in the matter."

"How did an Uchiha end up wearing Uzushio's hitai-ite?" Hashirama asked curiously as Tobirama scoffed. "I didn't think they would let one of their clan go so easily, let alone intermarry with any of the shinobi from Uzushio."

"There are only two Uchiha left," Sakura said flatly. "Itachi, and his younger brother. On the Shimura Danzo's orders, Itachi slaughtered the rest."

Tobirama's eyes narrowed. "Shimura Danzo? Not Sarutobi?"

"Danzo," Sakura agreed. "Using Sarutobi-sama's name."

"This is all your fault," Hashirama scolded his brother. "If you hadn't let go of your silly prejudices, and if you hadn't passed them on to your students…"

"He put them in charge of the police force, ostracizing them from the bulk of the shinobi," she said flatly before Tobirama could continue. "When the Kyuubi was turned against the village fifteen years ago, suspicion fell upon the Uchiha. In turn, they plotted a coup. Itachi was more loyal to the village than to his own blood, and he slaughtered them all, with the help of a man calling himself Uchiha Madara."

The disgruntled noise the Nidaime made was amusing, as was the noise of outrage Hashirama made as he wailed: "I _killed_ Madara. I _checked_."

"Obviously he was very good at playing dead," Tobirama muttered. "Is it possible he turned the Kyuubi on the village? It fits his modus operandi."

"I wasn't there," Sakura said dryly. "But let's ask the man who was up close and personal with the whole affair." Looking over her shoulder, she noted that the blonds seemed to have overcome whatever their differences had been and were chatting amicably. "Hey Naruto, has your dad told you anything about the night the Kyuubi attacked?"

"His name's Kurama, and _he_ told me that it was someone with a sharingan," Naruto called back. "We talked a bit, while we were in Kumo."

"It was a man in a mask," the Yondaime added, expression turning serious. "He attacked the location where Kushina was in labor just after Naruto was born. The seal was at its weakest then, and I was trying to protect them both on my own. He had this...odd space-time ninjutsu that wasn't anything like the hiraishin. It was difficult to land a blow on him."

"So, this Uchiha Madara approached Nagato and Konan, was the antagonist in the Kyuubi attack, assisted in the Uchiha massacre, and somewhere in his busy schedule found time to put the Mizukage under a genjutsu," Orochimaru summarized blandly. "Either he's found a way to preserve his life, or we are working with at least two people."

"Madara never had a space-time ninjutsu," Hashirama said confidently. "If he did, he would have used it during our final battle."

"Well, it's small comfort to know that we're not facing Madara, just a skilled imposter," Karin deadpanned with her arms crossed over her chest. " _That's_ going to be a big help when we free the Mizukage."

* * *

Orochimaru dispelled the jutsu, freeing the bound souls from the now dead mercenaries. Naruto was suspiciously bright-eyed as he helped Itachi seal the bodies so they could drop them off at the bounty station in Hot Water, but there was a sort of peace in Itachi's face, still carefully neutral, but somehow more relaxed than it had been previously. Sakura hadn't wanted to eavesdrop on his conversation with the Sandaime, but she hoped it had helped, instead of driven the guilt in further.

She wasn't so naive as to believe there hadn't been another way. Sakura knew that Itachi had chosen to follow orders he knew were wrong, had sacrificed his own morality and committed a sin beyond measure the night he murdered his family, down to the smallest child. That Sasuke was spared was simply selfishness, a man desiring to die for his sins who would do anything to achieve that. But she wasn't blind enough to miss how he had been torturing himself all these years, and there was no greater punishment than self-loathing. He would have to live with the consequences of his decisions.

But she was angry that powerful men had sacrificed Itachi to the altar of their own self-interests. Shimura Danzo, Uchiha Fugaku, Sarutobi Hiruzen. Each of them had shaped her sensei in ways that had broken him as a person, moulding him into a weapon. The shinobi villages were meant to be _better_ than child soldiers, if she had understood her history lessons. They were no more than mercenaries for hire, but Senju Hashirama had seen two of his three brothers killed before they reached adulthood and had fought to change that, to make a better way. For Itachi to have become what he had...it was a step backwards, away from the ideals the Shodaime had set forth.

"We will meet you at the bounty station," Orochimaru said suddenly as they left the shrine. "Shiroyami and I have one further task to accomplish here."

Itachi nodded, and motioned for the Uzumaki cousins to follow him. Tellingly, Naruto went without argument, leaving Sakura standing outside the ruined shrine with her shishou.

"Follow," he ordered, and took off into the night.

When he stopped again, they were on the edge of Konoha again, where the rough edges of the Hokage mountain spilled out from beyond the confining walls. Biting his forefinger, Orochimaru traced a seal on an innocuous patch of stone, causing it to open.

The air in the passage beyond smelled stale, but not deadly. No person had used it recently, potentially not since the snake sannin had defected from Konoha not long after her birth. Unerringly, he led her through the passages until they reached a small room full of scrolls.

Shifting a bookcase, he drew another seal, and a hidden compartment clicked open. Inside was a lone scroll, well worn, and bound with a silvery ribbon. "I have taught you much of what I have learned," Orochimaru murmured, lifting it out delicately. "But, I find myself unwilling to pass on my summoning contract. Years ago, I had another apprentice, who signed the snake contract, and will be my successor. So, since I cannot give you that, I have found another contract, if you are interested."

Sakura didn't know what to say. She had wondered vaguely if he would invite her to sign the snake contract, the way Jiraiya had Naruto sign the toad contract, but when he never mentioned it, she had chosen not to press him. It would do little good, and often made him more resistant to teaching her whatever she had been asking about. "Shishou, I...I am _honored_ that you would think of me," she managed to say, bowing deeply. Summoning contracts were rare, and for him to come across not just one, but _two_? "Please, tell me more."

"This contract belonged to a shinobi who I greatly respected," he murmured, tracing the scroll's edges. "A man who rivalled my teammates and I, even when we were acting as a single unit. He was a hero, until he misstepped, and the village tore him to pieces. Likely, he should have served as a cautionary tale for myself, but I was determined not to listen." Orochimaru's eyes sharpened. "He chose death as an escape from his humiliation, leaving behind a son who turned his back on his father's legacy. I...appropriated the scroll, when it became clear that it would not be signed, in the hopes that I would come across a shinobi worthy of it."

All Sakura could do was bow deeply once more, before taking the scroll as he handed it to her. It felt...weighted, but in a good way. Precious.

"We ought not to linger," Orochimaru said with a brief glance around them. "These tunnels seem undisturbed since I left them, but who knows what rats may lurk in the shadows."

* * *

She had been granted a week on the mostly abandoned northernmost island to get used to her summons. It had the greatest variety in terrain, while allowing for plenty of space without worrying about destruction. Orochimaru had warned both her and the council that he did not know what temperament the summons would be in after their former summoner's suicide, and Sakura would need space to run with them if needed.

The only other human beings nearby were the chuunin in the outpost, hidden up in the mountains. Her visit had been timed to end with the changing of the guard, so she would arrive home with them. Otherwise, she was on her own in the wilderness of the island.

A friendly fishing boat had dropped her off at the southern tip in the predawn hours, and Sakura headed towards the western side of the island where she had planned to make her main camp in one of the caves that were scattered around the base of the mountains that held the outpost. By the time the sun was fully up, she had chosen a cave and laid out her bedroll, spinning a genjutsu over the cave's mouth to steer passersby away, both human and animal. Taking only her weapons and the summoning scroll, Sakura hiked towards the clearing that she had spotted on her way to the cave.

Seating herself cross-legged on the grass, she centered herself, meditating for a while before she unrolled the scroll. Both Naruto and Orochimaru had talked her through making the initial summons until she felt confident with it, working with her until she knew approximately how much chakra she needed to call up in order to make the summoning a success.

"You'll want to aim high, with this contract," the snake sannin had told her. "Unlike the toad contract, where you can summon only a junior toad without running into problems, I would believe that these summons operate under a hierarchy, and it is best for you to earn your place in that structure by meeting the topmost member."

Taking a deep breath, Sakura looked at the previous summoner's signature. _Hatake Sakumo_.

 _Oh fuck_.

She usually wasn't one for cursing, but enough time around Hidan had taught her several creative ones. In the early days of their return to the citadel, everyone took turns sharing stories of the shinobi they had met. Naruto had, of course, told the story of Momochi Zabuza and Haku, but other legendary names had come up. The Sannin, Suna's Sandaime Kazekage, the Shodai Hokage...and Konoha's White Fang.

Sasori had removed himself for that story, and Sakura heard that his parents had been killed by the White Fang during the second war. But she had listened, enchanted by the story of the Konoha shinobi who was as kind and gentle as he was deadly, his title coming about from the pack of wolves he could call to his aid, the summons of his clan, who some said had been descended from a child raised by wolves. And then she heard his name, and at once, the stories were bitter.

Because Hatake Sakumo was a cautionary tale for Academy students. You did your best for your comrades, but the mission came first. Hatake Sakumo saved his comrades at the expense of the mission and plunged the nations into war.

She hadn't ever wanted to ask Kakashi-sensei about it, because the man was closed off about his personal life. But the stories told around the campfire held that he was the one who had found the White Fang's body, and Sakura could understand a bit better why her sensei had been the way that he had. It still didn't make up for the awful teacher he had been, but it helped explain some of his...quirks.

But her shishou had handed her the wolf contract, had told her that he found her worthy of it.

Another deep breath, to center herself again, and Sakura signed her name next to Hatake Sakumo's and flashed through the handsigns, slapping her palm against the grass of the clearing and preparing herself.

The burst of smoke told her the summoning had been successful, the amount told her that whatever wolf she had summoned was powerful. And when it cleared, she squashed her instincts down as far as she could, because she was surrounded by six wolves.

* * *

"You are not a Hatake," the largest wolf growled, ears flattened against his head. "You are not Sakumo's son, or his grandchild."

"Hatake Kakashi has a contract with ninken," Sakura said coolly, remembering the dogs he had summoned against Zabuza, and during the invasion of Konoha. "My shishou, who holds the snake contract, came into possession of your contract and offered me the opportunity to sign it."

"We care not for human permission," the other large wolf snapped in a voice that sounded vaguely feminine. "Our summoners must be strong enough to run with the pack, or they are stricken from our records."

"How do I prove myself?" Sakura pushed back, looking around the circle. "How do you wish me to show my strength?"

"Our summoner must be an alpha," the female wolf growled. "You must beat me in a challenge to earn my place."

"What are the rules?"

"None of your paltry human tricks," the wolf stepped out of the circle, towards Sakura. Behind her, the wolves shifted to complete the ring. "Your chakra may be used to supplement your body. This is a test of physical strength, not jutsus."

"And my weapons?" Sakura could live without ninjutsu, and could _probably_ win without her genjutsus, if they would have worked at all on the wolves. But in a fight limited solely to weaponless taijutsu, she would have to pull out every scrap of training her sensei and her shishou had put her through.

"You need claws and teeth, do you not?" The female wolf, likely the alpha female, was circling. Instinctively, Sakura rotated to keep her in sight knowing that if she wasn't careful, the fight could be over before it was begun. "If you are prepared, summoner, the fight begins _now_."

As the wolf lunged towards her, Sakura's hands shot into her kunai pouch, coming up with two as she dropped and rolled under the wolf's leap. Coming up into a crouch, she ducked a swiping paw and lashed out with her kunai. It did nothing, but Sakura kept moving, kept putting everything she had learned into the fight, and somehow, she started gaining ground.

It was subtle, so much so that she didn't notice until she started seeing openings. At the same time, she was beginning to tire, her chakra reserves already low from the amount she had used to summon the pack, drawn upon even more to augment her speed and blows.

She was resorting to instinct, letting muscle memory guide her, and as she saw the opening that would win her the fight, she was moving as the thought processed, a spring carrying her up and onto the female wolf's shoulders, the force of her landing driving them to the ground. With her kunai settling on either side of the wolf's neck, there was no room for the alpha female to move without causing herself injury.

"Submit," Sakura growled, breathing hard from the fight. "Or do you want to continue?"

"Well done, summoner," the wolf's voice was warm. "You have become the newest alpha of our pack. I go to my previous partner with honor."

She dispersed in a cloud of smoke, obviously dismissing herself, leaving Sakura kneeling in the mud, their fight having torn up the grass around them.

"What is your name, kunoichi?" It was the male who had confronted her the originally, the alpha male if she was guessing right.

"Shiroyami Sakura," she introduced, getting to her feet so she could bow. "I am honored to join your pack."

"And I am Kuro." Gesturing to the wolf on his right with his head, he said: "This is Yuki, my second."

"I am Ami, your second," a dark brown wolf said from opposite Yuki. "The younger two are Yasu and Hoshi, but you will get to know them eventually."

"I have been given a week to train with you," Sakura offered. "Please, teach me to work with the pack."

Kuro's growl had an amused tone as he answered: "Then let us run together, Sakura-san."


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen:**

"Does everyone know what they're going to do?" Konan asked as she looked out over the group assembled in the small cabin aboard their ship.

Sakura nodded, still feeling out of place. These were shinobi of legends, and she was standing among them on a mission more dangerous than she could ever have imagined.

"Whatever we do, we _cannot_ let the Sanbi escape," the blue-haired woman heading the squad reminded them, her voice firm. "Karin, are you and Kyo prepared to act if it becomes necessary?"

"I know the seals," the redhead said firmly. "And if needed, I will become a jinchuuriki."

"Only if you can't hold the Sanbi," Kyo assured her. "Terumi will want the next jinchuuriki to be permanently in Kiri, and we're not going to give you up that easily."

Konan nodded shortly, and stepped down to go lean against the bunk next to Nagato, who was staring down at the kunai pouch attached to his leg. For the first time since she had met him, he was in true shinobi gear, dark pants and a plain dark shirt and fishnets, with the standard Uzushio body armor over his chest. His hitai-ite held his bangs back from his face, the rest of his hair swept up into a short tail.

It was a theme that they all seemed to share. Dark pants, dark shirts, with fishnets and their hitai-ites proudly on their foreheads, hair tied up out of the way. Sakura's was tucked up into a bun, just like her shishou's, but her shirt only had one sleeve, the other arm left bare. Newly inked were a series of tattooed seals, seals that would call her pack to her with a touch of blood and chakra. A week she had spent on the nearly deserted island, running through all terrain with her pack, learning to lead them and hunt with them as they taught her what it meant to summon them. Around her neck, one of Kuro's teeth, shed and replaced with no more concern than Sakura lost hairs, rested on a leather thong. It was this that she gripped now, wishing that this was a situation that she could take her pack into, already missing the companionship they had shared.

"Remember," Orochimaru murmured to her as the call came for them to assemble on deck. "This isn't supposed to turn into a fight. The faster we subdue Yagura, the better."

"Yes shishou," she murmured, just for something to say. He and the other jounin members of the group seemed thoroughly unfazed, although Karin, the only other tokubetsu looked just as nervous when Sakura caught her eye.

Naruto waved cheerfully from one of the other ships as they went topside, grouped with Deidara and the rest of the genin, who Sakura suspected wouldn't remain genin for long at the rate they'd been progressing. Her former Konoha teammate had progressed exponentially under the tutelage of both Hoshigaki Kisame, and the Hachibi's jinchuuriki, and Sakura could believe him fully when he said he was going to lead the Uzumaki clan and make a difference for jinchuuriki across the nations.

Of course, she fully supported Karin as the redhead swore to take over for clan head after Nagato died, so it was hard to truly pick between the two.

Hoshigaki and Suigetsu were with Mei and the last remaining swordsman in Kiri's service. Both Hoshigaki and the swordsman had been drilling Suigetsu in the use of Zabuza's recovered sword, and the sight of three of the swordsmen with the Mizukage-apparent would be a powerful sight. Mei had protested being left out of the force attacking Yagura, but the council and her advisors had successfully reminded her that as the face of the revolution, she needed to be seen in the initial assault, before joining the genjutsu squad. Hopefully, by the time she and the initial sweep reached wherever Yagura was located, they would have subdued him enough to start breaking the genjutsu.

"Time to move out," Konan signalled before shattering into a thousand bits of paper. Sakura checked her weapons one last time before following the rest of the squad over the side of the ship, landing lightly on the water and racing off towards the mainland of Kiri.

The ships would draw most of the attention, Mei at the helm with the recognizable faces of the rebels along with her. They would charge through Kiri, while Sakura and the rest of the genjutsu squad would go straight for Yagura.

Naruto and Deidara, along with most of the Uzushio shinobi, would remain at the docks, ensuring that the way back to the citadel remained viable, and that any foreign interests would not hear of Uzushio's reappearance. While they had extended their seal network to encompass the entire island, preventing any unknown shinobi from landing anywhere but the port, where they could be carefully screened, Kiri and Kumo were unknowns. Naruto and Hoshigaki's team had spent most of their time in Kumo on a hidden island where the Hachibi's jinchuuriki often spent time, and Naruto was forced into a henge when he had to appear in Kumo proper.

He had complained, but eventually had caved, promising to remain as out of sight as possible, or be left in the citadel.

Karin whistled their directions under her breath from the center of the group, with Konan's paper signalling the positioning of traps and scouts. They were winding their way through the outskirts of Kiri, drawing ever closer to the cluster of buildings that could only be the center of Kiri's administration.

"He's at one of the training grounds," Konan said quietly as she reassembled herself next to Nagato, easily keeping pace with them. "Four guards on the perimeter, on the four cardinal points. Uchiha, north. Orochimaru, south. Utakata, east. I'll take west. Shiroyami, start weaving your illusions, and Uzumaki, Koizumi, get ready to bind him as soon as the guards go down."

Sakura moved forward with Karin and Kyo, already memorizing the landscape around them as she called up her chakra in a barely detectable trickle. Around them, the rest of their squad moved to incapacitate the guards, and everything started to slow down, her senses fully on edge as she waited for the fight to start.

"The guards are down," Karin signalled, and Sakura moved forward, knowing that this part of the mission was hers and hers alone.

Yagura had chosen a small, out of the way training ground, a clearing encircled by stubborn, gnarled trees, interspersed with drab shrubbery. Lightly, Sakura leapt over the last of the shrubs to land in the clearing proper.

"Such a young assassin that they've sent after me," Yagura mused, his staff gripped lightly in his hands as he faced her. "Young and unknown. It's a shame that you won't live long enough to be entered in the bingo books."

"Not an assassin," Sakura murmured, her genjutsus creeping through the earth, altering the perceptions. She couldn't take a chance and alter too much of the scenery yet, but the illusions would be there when she needed them, needing only a moment's attention to call them up. "And who needs the bingo book anyway?"

"Is your team as young as you?" Yagura asked idly. "I feel Utakata out there, so that's how you got in. But the others...they're unfamiliar."

Having heard that they were sensed, the others moved into the clearing, forming a loose perimeter. At that moment, there was an explosion from somewhere near the docks, and Yagura sighed as if he was a parent called to discipline unruly children. "I see Terumi hasn't given up. So, you're here to do the work for her, while she swans in on a blaze of zealous fervor?"

Konan whistled the command for start, and Sakura let herself fade out of sight as if she was a genjutsu herself, cloaking her chakra and image as she retreated to Itachi. Karin's chains erupted, streaking towards Yagura, who batted them away with his staff. But Utakata was moving, a stream of sickly green bubbles flowing towards the Mizukage, driving him back towards Karin's chains as Konan and Kyo moved in. Sakura could see their feet moving, deliberately scoring lines into the soil as they circled the fight, harrying Yagura while Karin tried to get a grip on him with her chains.

As the redhead had to fall back, Orochimaru moved into the field, supporting her as her chains were reflected, slicing through them with Kusanagi. Yagura's eyes narrowed, and Sakura allowed herself a tight grin. Each of them, as they stepped into the clearing, had taken the appearance of strangers in enveloping black cloaks. There was no masking their attacks, but Sakura wasn't willing to take the chance that this mysterious Uchiha controlling the Mizukage could learn of their identities.

Kyo let out a shout, slamming his hand against the ground, and a bright purple barrier sprang up from the seals he and Konan had been marking. Now that there was no chance of the fight spreading from the clearing, even if the Sanbi was released, he moved towards the fight, and Sakura looked at Itachi.

"Shouldn't we help them?" she asked softly.

"We can do nothing to bind him, and the others are already struggling to stay out of the crossfire," he murmured in reply, sharingan already in the mangekyo stage and focused on the fight in front of them. "They're about to get an opening, if they can manage it."

As she turned back to the fight, Sakura saw it, the moment Yagura's sweeping staff wasn't quick enough to block one of Karin's chains before it could latch onto his ankle. With a triumphant shout, she snared one of his wrists, slowly dragging him to the ground as more chains his their mark.

Itachi was moving, and Sakura was on his heels as they moved towards the incapacitated Mizukage. As they reached the group, Konan reached down and pulled Yagura's head up so that he was looking Sakura in the eyes.

"Time to wake up, Mizukage-sama," she murmured, slipping through the handsigns that would begin the initial genjutsu that would break the Tsukiyomi.

* * *

She met Yagura in the mindspace that was crafted based on her rules. In practice, she had met with Utakata and the Rokubi in an iridescent world, and Naruto and the Kyuubi in a rank sewer. This was her own world, crafted for the sole purpose of not letting the rogue Uchiha intrude, if he was able to exert any force over Yagura from a distance.

"What have you done?" Yagura growled, prowling in the cage of mirrors she had made for him. It was an idea she had borrowed from Haku, and she couldn't deny the poetic justice of the moment. Haku, a victim of the bloodline purges aided and abetted by the Mizukage, had given life to the idea she used to trap that very same man. "What kind of illusion is this?"

"The last one," Sakura declared, feeling a rush of empowerment as she attuned herself to Yagura's chakra flow. "Break the mirrors Yagura."

The amount of force needed to break the mirrors was roughly proportional to the amount of force needed to break the tsukiyomi. It was a visual trick of hers, designed to encourage the person under the genjutsu to break it of their own will. Itachi and Nagato were there as her backups, in case this failed, but she was going to pour everything she had into this attempt.

Yagura snarled and lashed out against the illusory glass, and Sakura felt the genjutsus shudder. As he struck the mirrors again, she added her own chakra to the illusion she could feel underneath everything, so long in place that it was almost impossible to discern it from the regular flow of his chakra.

As Yagura battered the mirrors, she redirected chakra flow, sussing out the weak points to the illusion and nudging them closer and closer to shattering until the mirrors crumbled, and with it the genjutsu.

Sakura maintained hers as the rogue Uchiha's genjutsu fell apart around them, but she allowed the dark world she had surrounded the mirrors with to lapse into the natural mindscape of the Mizukage.

Unsurprisingly, she found herself staring at Yagura, and a massive turtle that had to be the Sanbi.

"Yagura-san," she said with a polite bow. "I apologize for the rudeness of our encounter, but it was necessary.

"You broke the genjutsu." His eyes narrowed as they looked at her. "You are not an Uchiha."

"It's a skill I picked up," Sakura demurred. "We were asked for our assistance by Terumi Mei, who is currently seizing the administration of Kiri. Despite knowing that you were under a genjutsu, and therefore not yourself, she will depose you and take the hat herself."

"She's going to die alone, having never married," the Mizukage muttered under his breath before straightening up. "So, what is to be done with me?"

"There are two options." They had sat with Mei and discussed them in detail. Karin had commented once that Sakura was practically reciting them in her sleep. "You can step down gracefully, and remain in Kiri, supervised by Utakata and whomever Mei chooses. There will be a seal placed upon you to prevent any genjutsu from taking effect if it was cast by the sharingan, so you need not be concerned about this happening again. If you do not choose to cede the hat to Mei, your chakra will be bound, and you will live the rest of your life in the care of a team of fuuinjutsu specialists, away from Kiri."

"I was the youngest kage ever," Yagura hissed, turning on her. "The first kage to be a jinchuuriki, and you're telling me I have to step away from it just because a rogue Uchiha placed a genjutsu on me?"

"Under your reign, the seven swordsmen defected or were killed," Sakura replied coolly. "Bloodline purges continued, and you are not far from bringing back the graduation exam that caused Kiri to be known as _Chigiri_. You will be forever tarred with the deeds associated with you, genjutsu or not. Terumi taking the hat is the only way for Kiri to have a clean break and move forward."

"I want and advisory position," Yagura spat, crossing his arms over his chest. "I will not be shuffled off like an old man past his prime."

"Take it up with Mei," she shrugged. "But in the meantime, when I release us from this genjutsu, we have fuuinjutsu specialists on hand that have trained for the single purpose of subduing a jinchuuriki indefinitely. Think about _that_ before you make any sudden moves."

Without waiting for his response, Sakura shattered the genjutsu, coming abruptly back to herself as the connection between her mind and Yagura's that she had created using the illusion ended. Itachi was supporting her, his hands on her shoulders as she knelt before Yagura, who had stopped thrashing under Karin's chains.

"The genjutsu is broken," she announced, and she could almost see the relief in the air. "But he's not happy about ceding the hat."

"Who would," Yagura grumbled. "Where's Terumi? I want to talk to that witch."

"You always say the sweetest things," the woman in question said as she swept into the clearing, past the barrier which Kyo had taken down. "I take it he's back?"

Sakura moved out of the way so the pair could negotiate, surprising herself with how wobbly she was as she got to her feet. Itachi's hand on her elbow kept her from overbalancing, and she closed her eyes for a moment as the world spun.

Reaching blindly into her waist pouch, Sakura found a container by touch and opened it. Placing the soldier pill on her tongue, she swallowed it dry, feeling the energy return to her limbs as she steadied.

"Took a bit more than I thought it would," she mumbled as Itachi carefully let go of her, allowing her to stand on her own. "I miss much?"

"You weren't gone for more than a few minutes," Itachi assured her. "Nobody's come looking for us yet; Terumi kept them plenty busy out front."

"It's a shame it was over so quickly," Orochimaru murmured as he glided over to her side. "I would have thought that he would have given us much more trouble, being a kage and a jinchuuriki."

"I don't think he could touch the Sanbi's power," Sakura mused, thinking of how the chakra patterns had felt compared to Utakata or Naruto's. "It was just his natural reserves. I'm not sure if he couldn't reach them because he was under a genjutsu, or if he just didn't try."

"Fine! You win, witch!" Yagura snapped from his position under Karin's chains. "I'll allow the stupid seal and you can have the stupid had, but if you try to shuffle me off to some backwater, I'm going to come back and take that hat from your head no matter what."

"Karin?" Konan commanded, and the redhead let the bulk of the chains fade away, leaving plenty of room for Kyo to approach the former Mizukage.

It was the work of a few minutes to get the seal on and adjusted, with Itachi testing it to prove its effectiveness. Once it was settled, Konan gave the signal to move out, and Sakura fell in gratefully.

They were never meant to stay in Kiri longer than it took to help Mei take control. Without knowing what the rogue Uchiha would do once they took Yagura away from his control, all of them were wary about being away from the citadel's protections. Hoshigaki and the other Uzushio shinobi would be making their way back to the ships, which would set sail the moment everyone was accounted for. Assuming that their rogue Uchiha was on the mainland, they would be safe behind citadel walls before he struck against them.

Nagato had postulated that so long as word of unfamiliar shinobi didn't leak out of Kiri, it would look as if Mei had simply succeeded in deposing Yagura. That the genjutsu failed could be explainable, or at least blamed on the battle, and hopefully that's all it would take.

* * *

A month after the genjutsu on Yagura was broken, the first merchant ship from Kiri entered the port.

Sakura was on the other side of the island, working to help repair the roads that connected the major villages on the island to the citadel. It was usually a genin task, but most of the genin were currently undergoing a promotion exam, since it was clear most of them weren't truly genin any more.

When she returned, there was a chest in their living room, and Karin and Tenten were sorting through brightly colored silks with awe in their voices.

"Mei-sama sent them," Karin explained, pointing to a note lying open on their table. "Payment for services rendered. Apparently, they don't have enough actual money in their coffers to pay all of us, so she gave us clothes, promised several shipments of food to the citadel in general, and granted Hoshigaki and Suigetsu a dispensation to stay here so long as they train swordsmen for Kiri."

"What about the others?" Sakura asked, kneeling next to the chest.

"I think Konan got clothes too, and there was a collection of scrolls for Orochimaru. Kyo got a staff made by one of their best weaponsmiths, and I think she pretty much granted Itachi free passage and residency in Kiri if he ever needed it." Tenten explained, holding up a pale pink top. "This came in while I was on duty at the administrative building, so they were calling everyone in to distribute things."

Picking up a pair of grey leggings, Sakura hummed in appreciation of the quality. They were sturdy enough to be worn as a kunoichi, while still looking presentable. "I assume this is her way of trying to remind us to be both feminine and deadly?"

"Probably," Karin laughed, holding up a lavender top that reminded Sakura of a Hyuga's eyes. "But I can't complain. I've been stuck in standard shinobi drab for too long."

* * *

"The rogue Uchiha has been, to all appearances, backed into a corner," Kakuzu grunted. "It would make sense for him to move soon."

"But who will he move against?" Shiroyami, his Shiroymai's grandmother asked as she looked around the room. Orochimaru had a feeling he knew where this meeting would take them, but he had learned in his long life that it was not always prudent to assume things of authority figures. For instance, he had assumed Danzo would be loyal to him, as Orochimaru had been faithful in keeping his own promises. "Despite losing Yagura, he has not been seen in Kiri. Reports from Kumo show no sign of him there. Our shinobi report no sign of him in Wave, Ame, River, or Oto. That's a fair amount of territory to see no sign of him."

"If he continues pursuing the motive he used Akatsuki to pursue, we can expect him to be going after jinchuuriki," Konan pointed out rationally. "Kumo's had no attacks on its jinchuuriki, and will likely be one of the last targeted because of its military strength. Kiri would be the obvious first step, but he lost Yagura and may think that the Sanbi has been released and will need to reform after some time. Otherwise, assuming he hasn't heard the truth of the situation in Kiri, he likely assumes Utakata has not returned and is still on the continent."

"Our latest correspondence with the Raikage shows that the Takigakure's kunoichi recently visited the Nibi's host," Shiroyami pointed to a letter on top of the piles of paper in front of her. "Fu apparently made contact with the Yonbi's jinchuuriki and warned him of a rogue Uchiha hunting jinchuuriki. He, by her report, hadn't seen the Gobi's jinchuuriki recently, but was going to look for him to pass on the warning."

"Assuming he succeeds, and all three of them evade capture, that only leaves the Ichibi, which to our knowledge still resides in Suna," Konan countered. "Suna's still likely unsettled after the attempted invasion of Konoha, for all that it's been three years since. A good number of their jounin were killed in the assault, and their kage was dead before that. It would be a good place to target, especially if this Uchiha tries to use a genjutsu again."

"The Ichibi is too...delicate to chance a genjutsu," 'Orochimaru inserted smoothly. "By all accounts, the jinchuuriki cannot chance _sleeping_ without the threat of the Ichibi taking over. Before I killed him, the Yondaime Kazekage had spent several years attempting to assassinate the boy, believing him to be an unstable weapon. If I were this rogue, I would not attempt to destabilize an already unsteady mind."

"So that leaves the possibility of capture," Konan summarized. "Suna ought to be warned; this rogue may not have the full might of the Akatsuki at his summons, but he is formidable on his own."

"Whatever Suna knows, Konoha will likely soon know as well." It was highly likely that Jiraiya had made sure that he had plenty of whisperers stationed in the desert after the invasion attempt. "Their alliance was preserved only by the sheer fact that it was I manipulating events, not an actual movement by Suna. Whoever has taken the reins there will not want to risk angering Konoha further, since it was only mercy on the part of the Godaime that there was no further punishment for their invasion."

"Do we risk revealing ourselves to Konoha seems to be the major decision here," Shiroyami's finger tapped lightly at the desk. "By doing so, we would out the fact that not only are we harboring two of their most abhorred missing-nin, but we have also earned the allegience of their jinchuuriki. While A was willing to overlook the presence of the Akatsuki and several of his recently missing shinobi, he was not asked to issue a pardon to a notorious missing-nin or lose one of his jinchuuriki. Mei needed us to take back Kiri, which is why we were able to retain Hoshigaki and Hozuki, with the stipulation that they would train apprentices to become the next generation of Swordsmen."

"Suna's only hard to swallow issue would be Sasori's presence," Kakuzu's tone was speculative as he mulled over the complexities. He had become surprisingly valuable to policy discussions, Orochimaru had observed, even beyond the economic discussions. "But they would be unlikely to want him back, so if we could get them to accept that he is under Uzushio's control, that would likely settle the issue for them."

"We're assuming that we have to reveal ourselves at all," Orochimaru pointed out, bored with the single viewpoint he was listening to. "An anonymous tip in the right ears would get us a result."

"But would they take it seriously?"

Shrugging languidly, Orochimaru glanced at Konan as he replied to Shiroyami's question. "Jiraiya was hunting the Akatsuki three years ago, and knew they were after the Kyuubi, specifically. If whispers of a rogue power interested in taking the Ichibi start to circulate, it's likely that he would pay attention."

"Would that sabotage any efforts to form a treaty with Konoha in the future?" Konan asked after a long silence. "If we circulate these rumors, and our rogue remains out of sight, would we then place ourselves under more intense scrutiny when we finally resurface beyond our existing treaties?"

Considering, Orochimaru tapped his finger against his chin, still relishing the ability to do that without causing himself _pain_. "It might," he admitted. "They are likely to be skeptical of us even when we appear. Depending on what rumors make it out of Kiri and Kumo, our existence is an increasingly vulnerable secret. Sooner or later, the rumors of a group of shinobi in the citadel will reach Konoha, and Jiraiya will attempt to investigate. From my understandign of the seals that were raised around the island, we will be safe on this island, but that does not account for civilians that venture to the mainland and are questioned. Nor do we receive these protections on missions on the mainland. Our relationship with Wave and Frost will come under scrutany, and it is possible that the first contact with Konoha may become violent, simply because our shinobi will attempt to protect the secret with all that they have." He remembered entering the cell below Kumo's Torture and Interrogation building and seeing his apprentice there, huddled on the floor, her hair filthy and spread out around her, sakura petals being swallowed by the remembered Uchiha Itachi, always the martyr, hanging in bonds against the wall, a blindfold rendering him seemingly harmless.

He remembered listening to the interrogators, to the Raikage himself, as they discussed how his apprentice had withstood torture designed for S rank shinobi before he arrived. They talked about her with curiosity, discussing how they had tried to break her, tried to force her to reveal everything that she knew about her village to them. And she had resisted, had resigned herself to death rather than give up her name. Itachi had been unable to talk, unable to reveal secrets, but she had chosen not to.

A village that inspired such loyalty was one that he was proud to be a part of, especially when it gave just as much back to its shinobi. Uzushio had given all of them a second chance, a way to claw themselves out of the holes they had dug for themselves, no matter how deep. Here, he was given the respect he had never experienced as a Konoha shinobi. The same civilians and shinobi that respected his experience and respect could turn and smile at the jinchuuriki running up the road. It was a place for the wanderers, the outcasts, those who had been driven from their homes, and he knew that he would stand against even Jiraiya and Tsunade if that's what it took to protect the citadel.

But perhaps even more surprising was that he would not be standing alone. His apprentice would be standing beside him, and Kabuto, if he wasn't busy manning the hospital. Perhaps even Uchiha Itachi, or Uzumaki Nagato, all of whom who had no reason to stand at his side, after what he had done to them.

 _That_ was Uzushio, and that was what he would protect. And whatever their next move was, it had to be chosen carefully, so that nothing could threaten it.

"Perhaps," he murmured, interrupting the conversation Konan, Shiroyami, several other members of the council, and Kakuzu were having. "Perhaps we ought to approach Konoha first, and soon."

 *****Sorry for the late update! Ended up being busier this weekend than I anticipated.*****


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen:**

Genma really, _really_ hated babysitting.

Especially when the charge in this particular case, was a pissy sixteen year old with a chip on his shoulder.

Despite _still_ serving punishments for his attempted defection just after the Oto-Suna invasion, Uchiha Sasuke continued to be a thorn in just about everyone's side. Still a genin, there was no team willing to take him, and those that gave him a chance usually thought better of it after a short period of exposure. There was talk of arranging a field promotion, because if he got much stronger it would be obscene to pit him against chuunin hopefuls, but his behavior at his last debriefing had put all thoughts of reward on hold.

And as such, Genma was stuck escorting the brat on the stupidest mission the Godaime could come up with, to remind the Uchiha that it was _her_ keeping him out of the bowels of T &I.

Given the look on the brat's face, the tokujo was fairly certain the message was being ignored.

They reached Hot Springs as the night was falling, giving them just enough time to meet their contact, pick up the parcel they had come for, and check into the inn. And throughout the entire process, the Uchiha was sulking and snapping at everyone, including the woman operating the front desk.

"If you don't fix that attitude, you're going to be shoveling shit when we get back," Genma noted, leaning back in his chair in the inn's dining room. It was fairly sparsely populated this early in the night, but that just meant it was quiet enough to have a decent conversation. "Tsunade-sama's pissed at the report from your last mission, and this one's not looking so great either."

"She won't give me anything too shitty." The boy scowled as he toyed with a kunai. "You and your team told her that you won't supervise stupid D-ranks anymore, Kakashi's out on the run to Suna, and even Gai's fed up with me. Without anyone to supervise, she can't do much."

"You'd be amazed at the-" Movement at the door caught Genma's eye, and the people who came in startled him enough that his senbon slipped out from between his lips and clattered on the empty plate in front of him, the sound loud in the quiet room. It caught the attention of one of the new arrivals, and the sight of the man's hitai-ite made him grip the table so hard he could hear it groan.

"What?" the Uchiha demanded, but Genma was on his feet and moving, his hands in front of him and empty, showing that he wasn't intending on attacking. It was a fairly pointless gesture, given the skill of the average jounin, but the intention behind it was what mattered.

Despite knowing what he was going to find, Genma was still disappointed as the redheaded woman in the group, her hair pulled up into a high ponytail turned to him and he saw the glasses, and beyond them the slight differences in the facial features that proved she wasn't the same woman he had seen buried over a decade ago.

"I'm sorry," he said carefully, making sure not to make any sudden movements as the group turned to face him, "but, are your hitai-ites from Uzushiogakure?"

"I'm even an Uzumaki," the redhead drawled sarcastically, flicking her ponytail over her shoulder. "Did I remind you of someone, shinobi-san?"

"Karin," one of the other women reprimanded coolly. "We're not here to be rude."

"I thought the village was destroyed years ago?" Genma asked remembering Kushina, her grief whenever she talked about her home. "During the Second War?"

"It is hard to kill a village, shinobi-san," the woman who had reprimanded the Uzumaki said, her gaze clearly studying Genma and finding him wanting. "What about the shinobi on missions? Those who escorted civilians fleeing to the mainland? The battalion that was fighting with Konoha's shinobi, and Uzushio's best given freely to follow in Uzumaki Mito's footsteps?"

 _Kushina_. They knew about Kushina, knew that she was a jinchuuriki, and somehow they disapproved. Were they angry that she had died, angry that Konoha had failed to protect her? Genma felt the guilt weighing heavily on his shoulders, a constant reminder that he had failed in the keeping of his oaths, no matter what Raidou or Iwashi or Sarutobi-sama had said. Still said, on the nights when it got too much to bear.

But at the same time, it was a relief to know that her village had survived, had somehow grown from the ashes to where it felt confident sending a four man squad out in the open. And by the looks of it, the Uzumaki line continued in more than just Naruto. Perhaps, when they found him ( _if they found him)_ he could reconnect with his mother's clan, learn from them. "I am happy to hear that the village persists," he said simply, truthfully. "My mother's clan came with Uzumaki Mito when she was wed to Shodaime-sama. She was saddened to hear of Uzushio's destruction."

"The citadel is hale again," the woman, who seemed to be in charge based on the way the other three deferred to her, answered. "And it is time for her to take her place in world affairs again. We are travelling to Konoha, to seek an audience with the Godaime."

"My partner and I return in the morning," Genma motioned to the Uchiha, who was still sulking at their table, watching the group of foreign shinobi warily. "If you will have us, we would escort you, to ensure you have no troubles reaching the gates."

A quick glance was enough for the woman to nod before saying: "We would be...grateful for your escort. It would not be unheard of for complications to arise, given that most believe our village to have fallen long ago."

Some of the older shinobi might remember Uzushio, Genma knows, but the younger shinobi, even some of those who knew Kushina, wouldn't know the name, wouldn't know the significance of the spiral on their own flack jackets. Uzushio's destruction was a stain on Konoha's honor, and like most stains, it was hardly discussed.

"We plan to leave fairly early in the morning," the woman continued. "We'll meet you at the village gates around eight in the morning."

"My partner and I will be there," Genma promised, and left to return to the Uchiha brat, whose face was growing increasingly pissy, likely because he was feeling left out of the decision making. Getting back to Konoha without letting him offend the diplomats, which they had to be if they were trying to get an audience with Tsunade, was going to be a trial.

* * *

By early afternoon, Genma was regretting every impulse that had led him to put his name down on the list of _jounin willing to supervise Uchiha Sasuke during his probation_ that the Godaime had passed around. And he regretted more that he hadn't taken his name off the list after Ebisu had quit in a temper, storming into Tsunade's office and actually _shouting_ at her about the Uchiha's latest bout of surliness.

His discussion with the brat the night before had gone _splendidly_. About the only part he was certain had been heard and comprehended was that Uzushio had been the ancestral home of the Uzumaki clan, because for some reason the only two things that made the kid sit up and pay attention were his brother and Uzumaki Naruto. And unsurprisingly enough, neither person invoked any sort of pleasant response.

As agreed upon, they met the Uzushio delegation at the gates of the village in the morning and left without much discussion. When they stopped for a brief water break, he had managed to forestall one of the rude comments he could see his charge was itching to make, but now that they were stopping for a rest and rations bar break, there was going to be little he could do unless he sat on the brat.

"What kind of village sends three kunoichi to be diplomats?" the Uchiha asked as they made themselves comfortable while they rested.

"The kind of village that has Uzumaki in residence," the redhead snapped back. "Uzumaki Mito and Uzumaki Kushina were Konoha shinobi; you should understand how formidable they were."

One of her companions, a blonde who seemed close in age, stifled a sigh as she rolled her eyes. "We're not here to pick fights," she reminded the other girl, in a tone that sounded as if she was used to saying it. "He's not worth it."

 _Oh_. The only better way to trigger one of the Uchiha's mood swings was to mention Itachi, or Naruto, or both in the same sentence. As it was, the blonde had basically just tap danced all over the brat's buttons with four words. He couldn't help but admire her for the ability, while wanting to shake her for making him have to stop an explosion.

"Shiroyami, Uzumaki," their squad leader pinned them both with a glare. "We are here to establish diplomatic ties. Demeaning Konoha shinobi is beneath you."

"Hai shishou," the blonde bowed her head in acknowledgement, while the Uzumaki needed an elbow in the ribs before she harrumphed in agreement. Turning his attention to his own hothead, Genma cuffed the Uchiha as he opened his mouth, and raised an eyebrow in response to the glare he received. A glance towards the pouch that they both knew contained the senbon Genma dipped in his personal paralytic was enough to remind Sasuke what the penalties for stepping out of line were, and the brat subsided enough to gnaw savagely on his rations bar in silence.

They reached Konoha's gates without further incident, a fact Genma was inordinately grateful for. He could remember how Kushina and Uchiha Fugaku had gotten during their tete-a-tetes, and did not want to see what trouble this Uzumaki, who seemed much more hostile than Kushina had been, and Sasuke, with his bad attitude and chip on his shoulder, could get themselves into. Thankfully his counterpart on the Uzushio squad seemed well practiced in keeping her subordinates in line.

Izumo and Kotetsu were on duty at the gate, and he enjoyed watching their eyes widen as he sauntered up to the gates, Sasuke dutifully dogging his heels, although shooting glares at the two youngest kunoichi in the Uzushio delegation when he thought Genma wasn't paying attention. All activity around the gate stopped as the unfamiliar hitai-ite drew everyone's attention.

"Shiranui and Uchiha, reporting in from our mission to Hot Springs," he drawled, causing Izumo to jump. "We ran into the group of diplomats from Uzushiogakure at the inn there and offered our services as escorts. So long as nobody has any problems, we'll take them straight to Hokage-sama."

Kotetsu nodded blankly, mechanically filling out forms and examining identification for the group, but Genma was fairly certain nothing short of an invading army would be able to get his attention back.

* * *

Tsunade was having a good day, until a chill ran up her spine. Her luck was still terrible, so she probably wasn't going to have to deal with a village invasion, but there was something that just didn't feel right, and it made her even shorter with everyone who crossed her path than she usually was.

"Shiranui and Uchiha, reporting for debrief," a familiar voice drawled from the doorway, and she looked gratefully up from the stack of paperwork Shizune was forcing her to complete, standing at her shoulder to ensure it was getting done. But instead of seeing the two familiar figures of the reporting team in the doorway, she saw them, and four strangers, all wearing a hitai-ite of a village she had thought long destroyed.

"Somebody," she snapped, wishing she had a bottle of sake at hand, " _explain_."

The tallest member of the strange group, a willowy kunoichi with dark hair pulled up into a bun, stepped forward and bowed politely. "Hokage-sama," she murmured in a low voice. "I come at the request of Uzushio's council and newly appointed headwoman to attempt to reestablish diplomatic ties between our villages. I am Shiori, and with me are my fellow diplomats Koizumi Kyo, Uzumaki Karin, and Shiroyami Hanako."

"I was under the assumption that Uzushio had fallen some time ago," Tsunade said, choosing her words carefully as she studied the reactions of the group in front of her. "Otherwise, Konoha would have sought to maintain previous ties."

"We have recently been rebuilt," the kunoichi admitted. "But the time has come for us to take our place in world affairs again. Konoha was once an ally; we would be pleased to call it so again. Our council and headwoman have given us authority to negotiate in their stead, if you will agree to negotiations with us."

The council was going to have kittens over this, Tsunade knew. But she remembered her grandmother, the grief that she had seen in that day she had returned to the village, the day before Uzumaki Mito had passed. Remembered seeing the Uzushio battalion on the frontlines, their wild grief that had sent many of them to an early grave. Uzushio lived again, and she was going to honor their agreements. "Konoha would be honored to call Uzushio her ally again," she said firmly. "As you've caught us off guard, it will take a day or two to arrange negotiations. In the meantime, my apprentice Shizune will see to finding you lodgings and an escorts who can assist you while you are in Konoha."

Thankfully, Shizune was quick on the uptake, and showed the group out, leaving Tsunade alone in her office with her ANBU guards, Shiranui, and Uchiha.

" _What the fuck_ ," she snapped, shock making her lose her temper. It was a good thing Shizune had already left with the diplomats, or there would have been another lecture on proper language choices for Kages. "How in the hell did I send you two on the stupidest mission I could find only for you to come back with a quartet of shinobi from a presumed dead village?"

"We met them in an inn in Hot Springs," Shiranui carefully was stepping on the Uchiha's toes, likely to forestall a snide comment. Tsunade couldn't help but approve. It was less damaging than putting the kid through a wall. "I...the Uzumaki. She reminded me of Kushina, and when I approached I saw the hitai-ites."

Tsunade knew where he was coming from. The youngest ever member of the guard platoon, and he had lost the Yondaime and his wife to an unstoppable force of nature. While he was fit for duty, psych constantly noted that the guilt from the incident still lingered whenever Shiranui was recertified for had only ever met Uzumaki Kushina once, but she could tell what a great loss Konoha had suffered, and not just from losing their jinchuuriki and Hokage.

"So you offered to escort them back when you heard they were coming here," she summarized, tearing her thoughts away from the dead. "Write your damn mission reports and leave them at the missions desk. I don't need to debrief you on your actual mission. Then find me Jiraiya. We should have known about this _yesterday_."

* * *

Once they had placed the seals up in their hotel suite, preventing the team of ANBU they knew were watching from overhearing conversations, Sakura watched as Orochimaru fixed Karin with a stern glare.

"Whatever your hangups with the Uchiha, stop deliberately antagonizing him," the sannin ordered, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation. "We won't be able to get anything done if you two fight like cats and dogs during the negotiations. If Konoha brings in the clan heads, it's likely that he will be among them. I will not have you removed because you continue to bait him."

"Hai, Shiori-sama," Karin muttered, still looking mutinous.

It had been tense, standing in the Hokage's office and hoping that their disguises held. Karin and Kyo didn't need any, since Konoha had never heard of either of them, but Uzushio had taken a risk in sending Sakura and Orochimaru. But with her hair color changed enough that it didn't draw much attention unless the light hit it the right way, and Orochimaru using one of his less savory jutsus to reshape the angles of his face, recolor his eyes, and hide his clan markings, unless one was specifically trying to equate them with Konoha's missing shinobi, it would be difficult to place them.

Orochimaru had been necessary, the only one of them who was able to navigate Konoha's politics and remain undetected. Kabuto had been considered to go, also familiar with Konoha and able to speak for the hospital and research needs, but he was to recognizable and reliant on a henge, which would be useless with the Hyuuga Clan in the village. Sakura's changed hair color and overall growth since any Konoha shinobi had last seen her was enough of a disguise, provided nobody challenged it, and she was able to provide almost all of the same knowledge as Kabuto.

"So, what's our next move?" Kyo asked from where he was lounging in the desk chair he had appropriated. "We're here, the Hokage's setting up for negotiations, and we may have a free day. What do we do with it?"

"Shiroyami, you and Karin should wander and explore as much as you can. Get a feel for any changes to the village since we were last here. Don't deliberately seek anyone out," Orochimaru warned. "If all goes well, you might be able to drop your cover, but for now, this is just as hostile a situation as Kumo."

"Shishou, we went over this," Sakura pointed out carefully. "I know what I have to do. Who do you think they'll send for escorts?"

"Very likely a Yamanaka or a Nara," the sannin sighed. "They're most likely to be able to pick up on subtle cues others might miss. Not Uchiha; given the way that Shiranui was watching him, he's probably still being kept on a short leash. Potentially a Hyuuga."

A knock at the door broke them out of their deliberations. Orochimaru gestured for Sakura to answer it, and she deactivated the soundproofing seal before opening the door. Outside were two familiar faces, so much so that it took every scrap of control she had to keep from reacting.

"Hokage-sama sent us to be your escorts," Yamanaka Ino said cheerfully with a slight bow. "I'm Yamanaka Ino, and this is my partner Nara Shikamaru."

"Shiroyami Hanako," Sakura managed to say smoothly. "Please, come in."

The duo stepped easily into the common room of the suite, and Ino repeated her introductions, giving Sakura a moment to gather her composure. For all of her assurances to her mentor, the sight of Ino so suddenly had rattled her, but thanks to her training she had kept her face smooth and unbothered. By the time Ino's attention turned back to her, she was settled again.

"Hokage-sama suggested that we show you around Konoha tomorrow," the blonde offered. "In the meantime, can we show you where you can get something for dinner?"

"That would be ideal, Yamanaka-san," Orochimaru replied smoothly. "We were just discussing whether or not we ought to order in or venture out for food."

* * *

Negotiations formally began the evening after they arrived in Konoha.

Dressed in their finest, most of it Mei's gifts to them for their part in freeing Yagura, Sakura and Karin, along with Orochimaru and Kyo, bowed to the Hokage, who had been arrayed in her formal robes for the occasion. Behind her, Jiraiya stood with the wizened trio of Konoha's elders, and it took a good portion of Sakura's self control to keep her loathing from her face.

Shimura Danzo had caused the death of Uchiha Shisui and orchestrated the Uchiha massacre. It was something Sakura couldn't forgive, and hopefully something that they could share quietly with the Godaime during their negotiations.

Her attention was drawn back to the present as Tsunade bowed politely to them before gesturing towards the door of her office. "My clan heads have asked to share a meal with you, since they will be participating in the deliberations as well. If you would join us?"

"We would be honored," Orochimaru said, and Sakura couldn't help but be amazed at how easily he had convinced them that he was a woman. A few modifications to his facial structure, a change in the way he spoke and pitched his voice...combined with woman's clothes, he almost made a better woman than she did. She had known it was easy for him to pass as a woman from a distance, but to do so successfully when faced with his former teammate...she couldn't help but be impressed.

As they arrived at the restaurants, one of the Akimichi's own if Sakura wasn't mistaken, she was surprised to see the clan heirs gathered at a table near the one the clan heads were positioned around.

"Please excuse our impertinence," Tsunade said with a smile as everyone rose at their arrival, "but my clan heads thought your two younger members might appreciate conversation partners that weren't old and withered like the rest of us, and since they are the generation that will carry our two villages into the future, I thought it fitting."

"You are hardly withered, Godaime-sama," Kyo said with a chuckle. "But I see no problem with the presence of the clan heirs."

Orochimaru's nod confirmed it, and Sakura allowed Ino to sweep her across the room and into the group of her former classmates, Karin scowling at the sullen Uchiha from her side.

In short order, Ino facilitated introductions and had them seated, placing Sakura and Karin in the center of the table, next to each other, with Ino sitting next to Karin and Hyuuga Hinata on Sakura's right.

"Shiroyami-san, I understand Uzushio was renowned for its ability with fuuinjutsu," the Hyuuga heiress murmured under the cover of Kiba saying something relatively sexist and Ino trampling him down. "Is that still the case?"

"Much was lost with the bulk of our shinobi when the citadel fell," Sakura allowed vaguely, knowing that it would most likely be what anyone would assume. "But those that survived, and the archives that survived preserved the bulk of it, and all of those who returned are making up for lost time. My companion, Uzumaki-san, is considered the best of our generation."

"If we have a moment," Hinata murmured, eyes intense, "I would speak with her. I have dabbled in fuuinjutsu myself, but would welcome an expert's opinion on a matter I have been considering."

 _I'll change the clan_ , Sakura remembers hearing Naruto shout as he pummeled Neji into the ground during the chuunin exams. She remembered Neji exposing his seal, explaining what it meant, remembered being horrified by the idea. But Naruto had left Konoha, had never been in a position where he could force the Hyuuga to change. Hinata, though, seemed to have taken up the fight, if her hunch was correct.

"I'm sure Uzumaki-san would enjoy speaking of fuuinjutsu," Sakura said simply, reaching for the glass of tea that had been placed in front of her. "As someone who has lived with her, I can attest that her knowledge is both extensive and overly particular."

"At least I didn't write confidential mission notes on my walls in cipher," Karin snarked from Sakura's other side. "It took three coats for the walls to go back to white."

"You make do with what's available," Sakura shrugged. "I write my notes where I can see them with a glance, you sketch seals in the dirt between missions. Mori-san leaves sharp pointy objects where they're close at hand."

"So, is there a particular staple of Uzushio cuisine that differs from other countries?" Chouji asked curiously as the food was served. Sakura couldn't help but snicker as she caught Karin's eye. With food still carefully rationed, variety was only starting to return to their menus thanks to trading relationships with Kumo and Kiri.

"Fish," she said, choosing not to highlight how vulnerable their food supplies were. "Being a coastal village, we make most of our livelihood from the waters surrounding us. As such, those that do not become shinobi often become fishermen."

"Although our genin do plenty of fishing," Karin added, earning an elbow to her side. Sakura had happily forgotten about the number of days she had spent with the fishing crews; while not as numerous as the days she had spent rebuilding the citadel, they were certainly exhausting.

"Someday I hope to visit and try some of the dishes," the boy said easily, digging into his own meal. The proverbial ice having been broken, Sakura and Karin answered a number of questions from the rest of the clan heirs about Uzushio, and the redhead asked several about Konoha when she could. Sakura was content to let her carry that part of the conversation, afraid that she might slip up and reveal something that she wasn't supposed to know.

Surprisingly enough, the clan heirs seemed to ignore the Uchiha sulking in the corner, and he seemed disinterested in interacting with them, preferring to spend the evening watching all of them sharply. Sakura was on guard, waiting for the slightest hint of a sharingan in his eyes, but he seemed to be behaving himself, thankfully. Orochimaru had warned them again about antagonizing the Uchiha, but given the way Karin's eyes narrowed every time she glanced his way, Sakura was certain that things were unlikely to go smoothly.

It had...bothered her, to see that Sasuke was still acting as standoffish as he had been when they had been Team 7. Shiranui was obviously fed up with dealing with the Uchiha, if the vibe Sakura had been getting was correct, and the clan heirs seemed to want nothing to do with him. She could understand animosity from them, since their attempt to retrieve him had likely caused a great deal of pain for Chouji, Shikamaru, Kiba, and Neji, given Naruto's reports of the resistance they had encountered.

Surely he would have learned something, if he had come back to Konoha. Orochimaru had never been able to confirm what had happened to the Uchiha after he had come to Uzushio. Seeing him in the inn with a Konoha shinobi showed that he had returned to Konoha, theoretically showing enough repentance for him to be accepted back. With Orochimaru having stifled the curse seal, he would have had to earn his power the way the rest of them did, but it seemed as if he hadn't resigned himself to dwelling with mere mortals any more than he had at the age of twelve.

Sakura had trained under Itachi, had faced down a jinchuuriki with him, had watched every moment of his life leading up to the massacre, and had shared a cell with no hope of rescue with him. Sasuke was not his brother, she had come to understand that. But siblings were not each other, not their parents or relatives, and there was room for both Uchihas in the world.

Sasuke was inferior to Itachi. Not in his abilities, which she had yet to judge, but as a _human being_. Still caught up in the massacre, unable to move forward…

Itachi had been unspeakably cruel to Sasuke that night, and that was something that could never be forgiven. But the elder brother continued to live with his guilt, did his best to atone for it, kept Konoha's darkest secret without a single thought to how heavy a burden he bore. He had hoped that Sasuke would redeem the Uchiha clan from the cesspit it had become, and sitting here, looking at her former teammate, Sakura could honestly say that Sasuke had continued in his father's footsteps.

But she hid her thoughts behind a smile as she chatted easily with the other clan heirs, silently resolving to never let Itachi and Sasuke meet, so long as she had control of such an event. It would break what was left of Itachi's heart to see that if he had continued his original plan to let Sasuke kill him, all that would have been left of his beloved younger brother was a directionless weapon, pointed at whatever it could hate.


	20. Chapter 20

*****August 8, 2017: I've updated this- there was part of Tsunade's POV that had been in early drafts but got overlooked when I was putting this chapter together. Unfortunately you'll have to read fairly closely in that scene to find the differences. Sorry everyone!*****

 **Chapter Twenty:**

Exiting the Hokage Tower, where the negotiations were being conducted, Sakura fell back to speak with Shikamaru and Ino, who had remained their escorts. Karin hung at her heels; the request Sakura was about to make had been discussed that morning before they left their suite.

"Do you think we could visit the graveyard?" Sakura asked quietly.

Ino looked startled, but exchanged a brief look with Shikamaru before shrugging. "I don't see why not? Follow us, we'll take you there."

They stopped at a stall in the market to purchase an armful of flowers, all in vibrant colors. Ino had sniffed, but said nothing, and Sakura had hidden her smile in the flowers she carried.

Both of their escorts hung back at the gates to the cemetery, leaving Sakura and Karin to go on alone.

With a discreet nudge, Sakura indicated the memorial stone, at the head of the graveyard. It had been one of the council's requests, that they pay tribute to the Uzushio shinobi fallen in the service of Konoha after the citadel's fall. One by one, they found names on the stone, laying a flower, until the last of the names, _Uzumaki Kushina_ , had been honored, and less than two dozen flowers rested at the base of the stone.

A full battalion had fought for Konoha, and most of them had fallen in unmarked graves, if this accounting was correct. Many of the names on the stone Sakura had recognized were from clans that had come with Uzumaki Mito, had been Konoha shinobi, but with Uzushio's blood in their veins. It made Sakura angry, that fifty shinobi had fought, bled, and died for the village she had been born in, and it didn't even honor them. Part of her knew that it was likely not out of malice, but out of not being able to keep an accounting of another village's shinobi, especially a fallen village, but she was still infuriated.

Next to her, Karin straightened and stood, and began a soft, simple melody, one that all of them had learned by heart: Uzushio's farewell song. Traditional Uzushio funeral rites involved cremation as the mourners sang, and then the ashes were scattered at sea. These shinobi could not be returned to the sea, but their farewell could be sung. Sakura straightened as well, and joined the redhead in the song.

When they finished, Karin took most of the flowers and went in search of a particular pair of graves. Sakura only had a few specific flowers left, and she took her time as she headed for the Senju section of the cemetery.

A small bouquet of red flowers was laid on Uzumaki Mito's grave, in honor of her ties to Uzushio, but it was at Senju Nawaki's grave that Sakura paused and laid a white lily. From the Senju section, she moved to the mixed gravestones, searching for a husband and wife pair, leaving her final two white lilies there, before taking the rest of her flowers to the Uchiha section of the cemetery.

She ignored most of the stones, heading for one in particular, but she paused for just a moment to lay a single red blossom on Uchiha Mikoto's grave. The woman had tried to do her best by her sons and her clan, and Sakura couldn't fault her for raising Itachi as best as she could, especially with the pressure and the expectations on the boy. But the rest of her flowers, all as red as Itachi's sharingan, were left on Shisui's grave.

Before she rejoined Karin, there was one final grave to pay her respects at.

Around her neck, hidden by the high collar of the short kimonos she had chosen to wear outside of the standard shinobi uniform, was the leather thong with Kuro's tooth hanging from it. Her summons had informed her that it was the mark of their contract that the summoner be bestowed with such a gift. Apparently it was something earned from the canine alpha, and could not be passed down in a family line.

While multiple summoners could hold the contract, they did not call on the same pack. Each summoner had their own pack; her pack had never hunted with Hatake Sakumo, and would not hunt with whomever she passed the contract on to. Kuro would test the next male alpha, and Sakura would test the next female. It had been Sakumo's alpha who had challenged her at the first summons, and then returned to the summons' realm to spend the rest of her moons running with the pack.

Reaching into the pocket sewn into the sleeve of her kimono, Sakura withdrew the tooth that Kuro had given her after learning she was journeying to Konoha. Apparently Sakura's alpha female, Shiro, had wished for it to be placed on his grave. Sakura was only too happy to oblige.

Her respects paid, Sakura rejoined Karin and their escorts, heading back for their hotel.

* * *

"They went where?" Tsunade asked, eyes narrowing on the pair of chuunin in front of her.

"The graveyard, Tsunade-sama," Ino answered, swallowing hard.

"Which graves did they visit?" The entire group seemed like one large taunt, but Tsunade couldn't put her finger on what was so bothersome about them. Certainly, there was something familiar about the kunoichi who led the group, and something about the eyes of the young blonde kunoichi, but nothing she could put a finger on. She had served with a number of Uzushio shinobi during the Second War; perhaps that was why they seemed familiar? Regardless, knowing who they had found important enough to visit in Konoha's graveyard might provide some answers.

"They started at the Memorial Stone," Shikamaru answered. "Shiroyami had a large armful of flowers, and they seemed to be going through the list of names and placing flowers based on the ones they recognized. Less than two dozen in all."

"Both of them sang what seemed to be a funeral dirge," Ino added. Tsunade waved her hand impatiently, motioning for the pair to go on.

"Standard Uzushio burial rites," she explained with a shrug. She had seen them far too many times on the battlefield, and then again at her grandmother's funeral. "Did they visit any particular grave?"

"Uzumaki went to two graves and laid flowers on both, though only one flower on Namikaze Minato's grave. The rest of the ones she had went to Uzumaki Kushina."

Jiraiya winced from where he was leaning against the wall. As Tsunade glared at him, he hurried to explain: "You know who Namikaze was. Kushina...they were involved."

She did know who Namikaze was. Tsunade had recognized his face on the mountain, had heard the story of what had happened the night of the Kyuubi attack. And when she had seen Naruto trailing along at Jiraiya's elbow, she had placed the boy's father immediately. Hearing that Naruto's surname was Uzumaki and not Namikaze had been a bit of a shock, but Minato had plenty of enemies, and it was known to Tsunade that he'd had to seal the Kyuubi into his son. Perhaps Sarutobi-sensei had just invented a mysterious cadet line of the Uzumaki to try and disguise the boy.

But hearing that Namikaze and Kushina had been involved...well, that explained several things. And hearing that this girl, clearly an Uzumaki herself, had stopped to leave flowers at both graves, even if Kushina was favored more? "You think she's met Naruto?"

"Possibly," Jiraiya hedged. "It would be...diplomatically difficult to insinuate that at this point in the negotiations. They've been hinting that they have important news to pass on to Suna, but they want to have firmer agreements established with us before they entrust us with it."

"How many of the jinchuuriki have you accounted for?" she asked, trying to remember what his last report had mentioned.

"Iwa's two jinchuuriki are wandering; we've had reports of them since Akatsuki went completely off the grid three years ago. One of them recently met up with a girl who I'm pretty certain is Taki's jinchuuriki, but we don't have a firm description of the jinchuuriki at the moment. We know Suna's jinchuuriki is the Kazekage, so he's accounted for. Kumo's two haven't slipped their leash, although they've both been on and off the radar, and Kiri's been a clusterfuck lately. One of theirs was wandering, but just dropped off the radar, but that's not uncommon, and the other was the Yondaime Mizukage."

Who was just deposed, Tsunade thought grimly. Given the spotty reports coming out of Kiri right now, it was impossible to tell whether deposed meant dead or just removed from play. Waving that aside for the moment, she turned back to the chuunin. "Where did Shiroyami go?"

"She started at Uzumaki Mito's grave, and then went to Senju Nawaki's," the Nara boy said, eyes narrowed as he watched her. "From there, she went to a pair of stones, a husband and wife. There was no family name on the stones, only a tomoe carving. Your brother, and this pair, they all got single white lilies."

It hurt to breathe for a moment. Only one person would have laid white lilies on all three graves, and she knew just how easy it was for Orochimaru to change his appearance. "Anyone else?" she forced out, knowing that the Nara boy knew that there was a connection there, knowing that anyone with half a brain and access to the right records could put it together, but needing to pretend that she wasn't both glad and afraid that her former teammate might have returned to the village. Because, no matter what he'd done, no matter how many times he had pitted himself against them, she would always, always think of when they had been the sannin first, before the atrocities had driven a wedge between them.

"Just a single grave. No flowers, but she left a tooth. Some sort of canine tooth, on Hatake Sakumo's grave."

In the corner, where he had been so quiet she nearly forgot about his presence, debriefing after the mission he had just returned from, Hatake Kakashi made a low noise in his throat.

"Is that it?" Tsunade snapped at the chuunin pair, and was unhappy to see Yamanaka hesitate. "Finish and get out of my office."

"Shiroyami went to the Uchiha section. A single flower on Uchiha Mikoto's grave, a dozen on Uchiha Shisui's grave."

Hatake made a choked noise and Tsunade felt like throwing her desk out the window. "Get out. Keep doing what you're doing."

Once the door had closed behind them, she reached for the bottle of sake hidden in her bottom drawer. Pouring herself a cup, she threw it back, barely caring about the burn as it went down. "What does it mean, Hatake?"

"My father...he held the wolf contract."

"We know that, move on to the part that wouldn't be common knowledge." Unease made her tongue sharp, and she regretted it as Jiraiya winced, but she remembered Sakumo, remembered his pack as they tore through the lines in Ame with a level of teamwork that even she hadn't ever achieved with her teammates.

"The summoners always carry a tooth from their partner. It's the duty of the next summoner to lay that fang on the dead summoner's grave..." Hatake swallowed hard. "I haven't seen the contract since before my father died."

For a long moment, the only sound in the office was Tsunade pouring herself another drink.

"I don't care if you have to hire a genin team," she said slowly, breaking the silence, "but find out if you still have that contract. And what's the significance of the two Uchiha?"

"Uchiha Mikoto was Uchiha Itachi's mother. And Shisui was his cousin, mentor, and best friend. Shisui... he died not long before the massacre. It was ruled a suicide, but many of the Uchiha suspected foul play, and several of them suspected Itachi. There was never any proof…"

Throwing back another shot of sake, Tsunade grimaced. "What was your take?"

"I was their ANBU Captain," Kakashi said heavily. "Those two were closer than any pair I've ever worked with. If you had asked me then, I would have told you that there was no way Itachi would have killed Shisui. But, then again, I wouldn't have thought he could have killed his entire clan either."

She needed more sake. A lot more sake. "Hatake, find that contract."

Hatake nodded, and then disappeared, the emotions their conversation stirred up obviously too much for him to handle any further.

There were a thousand things about this that she should be thinking about, but for a long moment, all she can feel is relief. Whoever this Shiroyami is, she's not Orochimaru in disguise, though she most likely met him. Orochimaru was too fond of his snakes, even Manda who habitually threatened to eat him, to ever let that contract slip from his fingers. Whatever they're facing in these Uzushio shinobi, she's fairly certain they're not going to be squaring off against her former teammate.

"Orochimaru," Jiraiya said, voice almost a growl. "He's somehow involved with that girl."

"Obviously," Tsnuade drawled, savoring the burn of another sip of sake. "Only one person would be interested in his parents and Nawaki. And he was the only one to lay white lilies on their graves. Ever since he found that snakeskin…"

"What would he have to gain from Uzushio though?" Jiraiya snagged the sake bottle and her glass as he dropped heavily into the chair next to her desk. Pouring himself a measure, he sipped at it thoughtfully. "He had his village, in Oto. Why go through the trouble of resurrecting a dead village? And he tracked down an Uzumaki…"

"More than one," Tsunade interrupted, taking the sake back. "The girl, the Uzumaki girl," she clarified, "she didn't introduce herself as clan head. If she was the only Uzumaki in Uzushio, she'd have been awarded the title automatically. And in dealing with me, a blood relative, if highly diluted, she would have mentioned it, in case I was going to challenge her for the title. So she's got someone else she's confident in that's the Uzumaki clan head."

"Counting her, there's only two Uzumaki's that I know of," Jiraiya pointed out. "And as much as I loved that kid, I wouldn't put Naruto in charge of an extinct clan. Unless…"

"You heard of another Uzumaki in your wanderings?" the blonde prompted, scowling as he stole the sake back.

"Remember those kids...in Ame?"

Did she remember their team splintering in a single decision? Tsunade refused to mention it out loud, but she still resented Jiraiya for leaving them, for not being there when Dan's death drove her away, for leaving Orochimaru alone to suffer in a village that had never welcomed him, no matter how much of his blood was given for the village.

A village that had never welcomed him.

She could remember Mito's funeral, remembered being surprised at the solemn delegation of shinobi that had calmly taken over preparation of her grandmother's body and refused all attempts by the Senju to help with the process. They had stood in a semicircle around the fresh grave, singing the Uzushio mourning dirge. Vaguely, she could recall someone mentioning that they were the representatives of clans who had followed Mito to Konoha, an honor guard for their princess in a foreign country. How many Konoha shinobi had Uzushio blood running in their veins?

"Shizune!" she bellowed, and the closed door to her office opened, admitting her apprentice, whose eyes narrowed as they took in the sake bottle. But before she could reprimand her master, Tsunade snapped: "Send a team to comb through the old records. The ones that date no earlier than the end of the second war. I want every name of every refugee, every immigrant, and every member of the clans that came with Uzumaki Mito when she married the Shodaime. Once they have that list, I want them to find out whose descendents are still living. Trace their bloodlines and get me a list of every person in Konoha's records that has a blood attachment to Uzushiogakure!" As an afterthought, she added: "And get another team to get me all the records pertaining to the Uchiha Massacre. All of the records."

Her apprentice scurried out the door, leaving Jiraiya alone with Tsunade again. "A hunch?" he asked, taking another swallow of sake.

"Uzushio shinobi had to come from somewhere," the blonde grunted, snatching the sake back. "Those two girls are too young to know Uzushio's customs because they had grown up there. Someone had to have survived and taught them, but first, they were somewhere else. Konoha was Uzushio's ally, and a good handful of shinobi followed Mito to Konoha. I'd be willing to guess that some of our missing shinobi from three years ago went to Uzushio."

"That's going to throw a wrench in things," Jiraiya mused. "Wasn't his mother close to Mito-sama?"

"I can't remember," Tsunade snapped, not wanting to dwell on those days any longer, afraid of what she might see. It would certainly make a strange amount of sense, and jive with what the Uchiha had reported of Orochimaru's last movements three years before. "You were about to tell me about an Uzumaki you met in Ame?"

"You met him too hime," Jiraiya said pointedly. "If he's an Uzumaki."

"That scrawny, redheaded runt who couldn't look anyone in the eye?" she scoffed. Her grandmother, and Kushina, had a strong sense of self-confidence and tended to sort out differences through violence. "He couldn't be." For one, if anyone had suggested to a young Kushina that she should probably just be killed, saving her from the life of a war orphan, the redhead would have done her best to slit Orochimaru's throat.

"I think he might have been. His reserves were unnaturally large. And, hime...he had the rinnegan."

She looked directly at Jiraiya, sure it was a joke. But he was deadly serious, in a way he almost never was. Tossing back what was left of her sake, she let it burn down her throat before asking: "What happened to him?"

"I had heard he died. That they all did." Jiraiya laughed shortly. "But some things seem to be more alive than we thought, so I'm not sure I believe that."

A rinnegan user who might be an Uzumaki...that would certainly make a good candidate for clan head, as well as making Uzushio very difficult to do away with.

All of the sudden, Tsunade hated that she hadn't found a suitable candidate to replace her yet. This was not a mess she wanted to be anywhere near, not with how likely it was that it could blow up in her face.

* * *

Spilling out of the Tower with the rest of the younger generation, Sakura tipped her face up towards the sun. She missed being outside, felt restricted by the long days in the negotiation chambers, arguing with Konoha's diplomats over just about everything, up to and including the placement of punctuation in a sentence. They hadn't been able to do more than keep up with conditioning since they left Uzushio, and she missed her daily spars with her friends and mentors.

Ino worked the group, collecting lunch suggestions from everyone before directing them to a familiar barbeque place not far from the Tower. As they settled into their booth, Hinata motioned towards the fan Sakura kept tucked into her obi. "That looks lovely. May I see it?"

Figuring that the Hyuuga heiress wouldn't bother to use her byakugan in such a public setting, opening Konoha to accusations of maligning the diplomats Uzushio had sent, Sakura withdrew the fan and offered it to her, base first.

Hinata seemed taken aback by the weight of the fan, but recovered quickly, assuming the metal frame was responsible, unlike the usual wooden frames. It was mostly true, but it also helped make the fan particularly useful as a bludgeon, not counting the booby traps Sasori had built into the design, or the fact that if you channeled chakra into the fan, it would extend the blades hidden in the tips of the fan, turning it into a useful weapon to carry into a room where weapons were prohibited.

Not that anyone in that room actually expected the rule to be enforced. Sakura's hair was held up in a bun by a pair of poisoned senbon masquerading as hair sticks, there was a brace of senbon tucked up one sleeve, and her entire arsenal sealed in that tattoos on her left arm. Karin had an identical set of poisoned senbon that Sakura had loaned her, her own fan, and Sakura was fairly certain that there were several other weapons discreetly hidden on her person. Not counting that the redhead was absolutely deadly with seals, so much so that with a piece of paper and some ink, which were common in the meeting rooms, she could blow all of them to pieces.

As Hinata examined the fan, with Ino leaning across Shikamaru to get a better look, there was a scoff from the corner of the booth.

Karin bristled, and Sakura stifled a sigh. The redhead had been butting heads with the Uchiha ever since they had met in the inn in Hot Springs, and it only got tenser each encounter. "Problem Uchiha?"

"Do they just hand out cushy diplomatic positions to pretty faces?" the Uchiha sneered. "Prancing about dressed like that, every hair in place...you can't have much in the way of actual skill."

Clamping her hand on Karin's thigh to keep the redhead from lunging across the table to gut the boy, Sakura raised an eyebrow at Sasuke, a gesture she had learned from her shishou. "Are you implying that competent shinobi cannot care for their appearance?"

"Hn."

Knowing Sasuke, that was the closest to an affirmative answer she was going to get. Tapping her finger on the table, she counted to ten before replying sweetly: "I'm sure Hokage-sama would agree with you. Or Hyuuga-san's father, or Yuuhi-san." The former jounin instructors had gotten dragged into supervising Kyo and Orochimaru during these break periods, since most of the clan heads weren't able to make every meeting, or had other duties to attend to during the breaks. As it was, she could feel the sannin's stare on the back of her head from where that group was sitting, likely sensing trouble brewing.

"They're jounin," Uchiha said pointedly. "And they are rarely in the field."

"We're tokujo, with promotions to jounin pending based on recent mission successes," Karin needled. "What are you Uchiha, a genin?"

He bristled, but Sakura cut in across whatever he was about to retort with. "We are present on a diplomatic mission. Since there is no expectation of combat, our clothes are appropriate for meetings, which are largely stationary. Even so, I am confident in my ability to fight in these clothes at the same level as I would in standard shinobi gear." She and Karin had practiced, while the tailors were adjusting their clothing. They had picked short kimonos and leggings to keep their movement, went with tall shinobi boots for added protection on their shins, and made sure that the long sleeves could be detached easily at need. But they were also useful for concealing, which is why Sakura had chosen to keep them to begin with.

"Prove it," Sasuke spat, fingers clenched on the edge of the table.

"Shishou?" Sakura called, and Orochimaru was gliding over, the rest of the older crowd joining them seamlessly. "Do we have time for a spar before the meetings begin?"

"I believe we could make some time, if we order our food to go," Orochimaru murmured, a smirk half hidden by his bangs as he turned to Ino's former sensei, who was the leader of the Konoha delegation. "Sarutobi-san?"

"With the proper ground rules, I don't see how it could be a problem," the man hedged. Chouji's father smiled at them all. "I'll stay here and arrange for the food to be sent back to the Tower. I believe Training Ground 9 is available at this time."

Rising, Sakura fell into step at Orochimaru's side as they headed for the training grounds. They had anticipated Sasuke challenging them like this at some point, knowing that he felt threatened by their presence and cool dismissal of him. She was likely to be directly challenged by the boy, or have to step in to prevent a situation where Karin beat the Uchiha to a pulp. The redhead held grudges, and was insanely protective of Naruto. Learning of the fight at the Valley of the End did nothing to endear Sasuke to her.

"We should have time for three matches," Sarutobi-san was saying as they entered the training ground. "Maybe two, depending on how long the first two matches last. Any takers?"

Sasuke was quick to step up, but Sakura held back, waiting for Orochimaru's permission to step forward. When the slight nod came, she stepped forward and took her place on the open field.

* * *

"Anyone interested in bets?" Karin asked cheerfully, looking around at the gathered shinobi. Most of the younger group looked...mildly concerned. _Oh ye of little faith_. "No takers?"

"A hundred that she beats him over the head with her fan," a wild looking Inuzuka girl a few years older than the rest of the clan heirs offered. "It certainly looked like it could take it."

There were a few mumbled bets in the Uchiha's favor, but as Karin turned to Orochimaru and Kyo, she knew they would take her up on it.

"Five hundred that she doesn't let him get anywhere close to beating her," Kyo said cheerfully. "An extra hundred if she uses genjutsu."

"Bad bet," Orochimaru warned. "She wouldn't be foolish enough to use that here. It would be heresy, beating an Uchiha with genjutsu. Shiroyami is smarter than that."

Sarutobi-san finished reminding them that the spar was non-lethal and meant to be a friendly test of abilities, and then he retreated back to the treeline where the rest of them were waiting. Pulling herself up into a low-hanging branch, Karin settled in to watch the fight.

She had seen Sakura spar before, and knew her friend was on par with Uchiha Itachi. Sasuke was...not even close.

His speed was...not as bad as she had thought. And he wasn't completely telegraphing his moves, which was good. But Sakura was able to dance around him with ease, which just raised his temper.

Karin saw the flicker of red as the sharingan activated, and settled in to watch the beginning of the boy's downfall.

Sakura widened the gap in their skills, and then the sharingan flickered again, evolving into the mangekyou.

The Konoha adults were on their feet, moving towards the pair as the Uchiha reached out for Sakura, holding her slightly off the ground by her neck as she looked down into her eyes, but Karin nearly fell out of her tree laughing. Orochimaru sighed, but Kyo was cackling along with Karin. As they watched, Sakura slumped, as if overcome, causing the Uchiha to loosen his grip and let her fall, but as she hit the ground, she surged up, and sent the Uchiha flying into the pond in the next training ground with a powerful kick to his jaw.

This time, Karin _did_ fall out of her tree laughing.

All of the Konoha shinobi were in a tizzy, fluttering about as they rushed for Sakura, who was straightening her clothing. Some of them were muttering about medics, hospital stays, the _Hokage_ … Orochimaru pinched the bridge of his nose and swept off towards his apprentice, and Karin picked herself up and followed in his wake.

"You are well, Shiroyami?" he asked smoothly, cutting across several panicked inquiries. The jounin had gone to retrieve the Uchiha from the pond, leaving Sakura at the tender mercies of their own age group.

"Hai shishou," she said with a quick dip of her head. "I simply did as we have practiced."

"Nobody can break the Tsukiyomi," their blonde escort said, peering anxiously at Sakura. "How are you still moving?"

"I'm...particularly resistant to genjutsus after a bad experience as a genin," Sakura replied vaguely. "My sensei and my shishou helped me create strategies to deal with them."

"Even the Tsukiyomi?"

"She's not in the bingo books yet," Karin announced, drowning out other questions, "but if she was, there's a strong argument for calling her the Uchiha-that-wasn't, given her skills with genjutsu."

That just started another firestorm of questions, but the spectacle of the Uchiha being marched up to apologize, still soaking wet, and then being sent home with the Copy-nin as his babysitter was enough to distract most of them.

Orochimaru managed to briefly lay his hand on Sakura's head, and the redhead saw her friend give a quick grin of thanks for the brief show of affection, a rarity from the sannin. Karin, however, had no compunctions about nearly tackling her friend with a hug and proceeding to change the topic of conversation from Sakura's match against the Uchiha to lunch and the afternoon's meetings.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty-One:**

"We've got a problem."

Sakura looked up from where she was lounging on her bed, taking notes of the day's discussions. They were almost done with the negotiations, with only a few matters left to raise. Mainly the issue about Uzushio's high population of missing-nin and three highly noticeable Konoha missing-nin. "Which problem in particular?"

"The conjunctivitis one."

"We're going to need to talk about this." _Fuck._

Leaving her notes on her bed, not bothering to even close the notebook because the only key to her personal cipher was back in Uzushio, hidden in the hospital vaults, Sakura joined Karin as the redhead headed for the common room of their suite.

Kyo was sharpening the blade hidden in his staff, and Orochimaru was seated as the desk, writing down his own notes about their interactions with Konoha's council and other negotiators. Both of them were immediately on alert when Karin slapped her hand down on the coffee table, activating a privacy seal as she withdrew her hand.

"We've got company," she announced, dropping down on the couch, the long sleeves of her short kimono flicked out of the way before she sat on them. "Our friend with the permanent case of conjunctivitis and hoarding tendencies made an appearance. Or, at least I'm fairly certain it's him."

"Where?" Orochimaru asked, reaching for the stack of maps they had brought from Uzushio, a gift from the Raikage brought by Nii when she first arrived in the citadel. "And why are we only learning about this now? Have we found the limits of your range?"

"I just got a sense for him," Karin explained, leaning forward to look at the maps. "His chakra...it's not like the others. There's smoke, but there's also...green. Growth. Just as much as the smoke. Now that I know what I'm looking for? I'll be able to find him without a problem. The issue is that he's in Konoha."

" _Konoha_?" Orochimaru hissed, setting aside the maps for his own sketch of Konoha's layout, updated with the information gleaned from Sakura and Karin's supervised wanderings. "How close?"

"He's not planning an attack," Karin said as she pointed at two places on the map. "He was here for a while, and then went here, before just disappearing for a moment before he turned up here."

Her finger stabbed at two places on the map of Konoha, and then she pulled a map of the continent towards her and pointed at a place marked as _Mountain's Graveyard_. "I don't know how he got there so fast, but I can only think that the more important bit is that _he can get there_ _that fast_. We won't have any warning if he decides to attack, no more warning than I can give. Depending on how many people he can bring with that technique, we're going to have to assume that a battle can start at any point in time."

"We could control it," Kyo mused, looking at the map. "Thanks to you and Kabuto, we have connections in Oto. I'm sure the Raikage would enjoy a chance to smash something up, and if we send both their forces into Mountain's Graveyard, we might drive our schemer out into the open."

"Cornered rats are the most dangerous," Orochimaru warned. "And I doubt the Raikage would be interested in invading unknown territory based on a sensor's report of a hostile figure within."

"If there's a base of operations here, a concerted show of force by Oto and Kumo might be enough to spook him into moving up the timeline," Sakura pointed out. "He was in Konoha, and that second stop is the Nakano Shrine. Only Sasuke would have any reason to be there these days…"

"He was," Karin nodded. "He was definitely meeting our masked man."

"If he's talking to Sasuke, he wants something from him. There was no point in allowing Itachi to keep him alive all these years only to kill him now, unless he wants to draw Itachi out. But Sasuke wasn't his first stop, so he had to have been meeting someone else, which means we have another conspirator in Konoha."

"It felt like the councilman...Shimura," Karin said after a long moment. "But I can't be certain."

"Danzo was complicit in the attack that killed Yahiko and crippled Nagato," Orochimaru said flatly. "He's used outside forces for his own ends. I'm aware of his ordering at least one assassination attempt on the Sandaime, and he seems to have little love for Tsunade. If I were to invade Konoha again, I would meet with him, dangle the option in front of him and see if he bites."

"Based on Itachi's account, he ordered the Uchiha Massacre, acting for the Sandaime," Sakura pointed out. "He's not above working against the Hokage, if it suits his own end. Your opinion, shishou?" She suspected that Orochimaru knew much more about the man than he had ever let on, had suspected that somehow the councilman was involved in the sannin's fall from grace and descent into madness. But he had never spoken of it with her, hadn't dared broach the matter.

"At this point, it is...prudent to assume that Danzo may have been receptive to overtures from our masked man. The Hokage is probably not aware of this, and as such, any support the man gets is from Danzo alone. But he had...a great deal of power a decade ago, and I have no doubt that it has only grown stronger. There is an entire subsection of ANBU trained to be completely loyal to him above all others."

"What would happen if Sasuke learned the truth of the massacre?" Kyo asked, looking at Sakura. "How would he react to knowing that his family was murdered by his brother acting on the Hokage's orders?"

"I think he'd snap," she said bluntly, running a hand through her hair, loose since they were in for the evening. "He hasn't matured at all since he defected, hasn't got any support system in place to help him cope, still lives alone in the compound, has no real ties to Konoha outside of his being born here...I think he'd snap and turn against the village."

"So we could fight on three fronts," Kyo mused. "Our masked man, Sasuke, and whatever Danzo attempts. An attack on the village would be a useful distraction, allowing a change in Hokages."

"Assuming that the masked man doesn't bring any reinforcements with him," Karin pointed out. "I only sense one other person, with a cloying _green_ chakra signature, but that doesn't mean there isn't an army somewhere else, waiting to be called up."

Orochimaru sighed, looking over the map in front of him. "We need to alert Suna about the threat to their Kazekage. Just because we've sensed the man in Konoha doesn't mean he's coming here first. And we need to get Weasel and Pein closer in case he strikes."

"Pein will sense a chakra flare at this distance, if I do it deliberately," Karin offered, biting her lip. "He won't know what it means though, and may tell the headwoman to send in the calvary."

"I'll send a summons to Kabuto," Orochimaru sighed. "They should be able to take a fast ship to Wave. The bridge builder will harbor them there, and they'll be close enough to reach both Suna or Konoha, depending on how everything happens."

"We'll need them, and we might want a few others, since we had the Rokubi with us," Kyo pointed out. "In Kiri, we only had one front to fight on, and our opponant simply had plenty of power. Here we're looking at three fronts, assuming that Danzo, Sasuke, and the rogue fight separately, and from the Yondaime Hokage's reports, the rogue can become intangible."

"Let me think on it," Orochimaru collected his maps. "In the meantime, we need to get a message to Uzushio to have them move at least Weasel and Pein."

"The Nanabi is close," Karin said suddenly, straightening as she adjusted her glasses. "If we sent her a message, using that code that Tenten developed?"

Sakura nodded. It had been a joke, something that most of the female genin had gotten into, trying to come up with discreet ways to transmit messages. They had taught Fu, Nii, and even Mei. A way for their kunoichi network to pass messages that could withstand scutiny. Not anything deep enough for detailed information, but enough to request a meeting.

"A messenger bird could get to her today if it was sent as soon as we wrote the message," Karin explained, furrowing her brow as she calculated distances. "She could be here by tomorrow night, and through her, we'd be able to reach any of the biju."

"It would be an efficient way to warn our allies," the sannin mused. "But we can send one of my snakes to her, and not risk interception by Konoha shinobi. They seem to have gotten increasingly watchful of late, and the Hokage's assistant strangely absent from negotiations."

"I probably gave too much away in the graveyard," Sakura admitted with a scowl. "I just wanted…"

"There are a number of people who you honored for those who could not openly honor them. It's not a fault, being kind like that," her shishou said as he rose and flashed through the summoning signs, a small snake appearing in a brief cloud of dust. "Where will you be meeting her?"

"The teahouse near the Tower," Sakura said firmly. "It's a shinobi haunt, so nobody will think overly much of it if I meet a kunoichi friend and we have a quiet conversation. Should I tell her to warn all the biju, in case Konoha isn't the target?"

"We may not be able to get word to Suna in time," Kyo pointed out. "It's worth a try, although how much the Kazekage listens to the Ichibi…"

"You will have your meeting in two days time," Orochimaru gave the instructions to his summons, which vanished in another puff of smoke. "Assuming our friend manages to make it."

"I have a feeling she will," Sakura shared a sly grin with Karin. "It took Kakuzu to get her into Uzushio, but she's pretty fond of us. And not against villages in general."

* * *

"It's been a while," a chipper voice called from outside the booth Sakura and Karin had claimed. "Funny to find you two here, of all places."

"Have a seat and we'll tell you the whole story," Sakura said, motioning to the empty seat next to Karin. "We've ordered tea and a few sweets; it should only be a minute longer and then we can catch up."

Karin was idly tracing patterns against the tabletop as the waitress set their order down, but once the woman was gone, the movements became deliberate, and as Sakura poured the tea, the outside sound lowered to a dull hum, as if a switch had been lowered.

"One of these days I'm going to come back and learn sealing," Fu commented, examining the seal Karin had drawn on the table. "Can they hear us?"

"A dull hum, just like what we hear. Not enough to listen in on us, but there's still something, which in a busy place like this is enough not to draw suspicion." Karin's eyes lost focus for a moment, and then she came back to the conversation, adjusting her glasses as she said: "Nobody's inside the booth with us either, so we're all good."

"I was surprised to get your message," the jinchuuriki said, reaching for a manju shaped like a leaf. "What do you need me for?"

"We've got a lead on our rogue masked man," Sakura said, motioning to Karin. "He's been sensed near Konoha two days ago, and retreated back to a place known as _Mountain's Graveyard_. Given who we think he was visiting in Konoha, he might choose to attack here, since we're here negotiating a treaty with Konoha. It's possible that he suspects we're involved in the disappearance of the Akatsuki and several of the jinchuuriki and wants to draw us out, but we have nothing firm except his presence in Konoha."

"We want you to warn the other jinchuuriki," Karin picked up where Sakura subsided. "Our mystery rogue can get across the continent in the blink of an eye, so distance is not a problem for him. All of you should be on alert, since we don't know where he'll strike, if he's going to strike at all. Your shared mindscape is the best way to alert everyone quickly, since it can happen faster than a message can fly."

"Not a problem," Fu grinned as she nodded enthusiastically. "You need a message to Naruto in particular?"

"If you're willing," Sakura said, remembering the orders Orochimaru had given them. "We were going to use the summons like we did with you, but that also takes time."

"Uzushio offered me safety without strings," the Rokubi's jinchuuriki said with a shrug. "If you guys need help against this guy, I'm happy to do what I can."

"Then tell Naruto what you're going to tell the other jinchuuriki," Karin said, no humor in her eyes as she stared down the other girl. "Then tell him..."

* * *

They were wandering the streets when the ground rumbled beneath them, and explosions began, coming from three separate directions.

Without pausing for more than a moment, Sakura looked at Karin, whose eyes had gone unfocused as she identified the attackers.

"Baby Uchiha's in the compound, his clansman is by the mountain, and the elder is moving towards the Hokage," she rattled out, eyes coming back into focus. "My scroll?"

Sakura nodded, and tore off her left sleeve, revealing the intricate seals she had tattooed. Most of them were her summoning seals, but there were a few genjutsus that she had fashioned into seals, mostly low-level genjutsus, and several storage seals. Biting her thumb, she slid it across the seal that held Karin's weapons scroll, passing it to the redhead as it appeared.

"Shishou will know where to go," she assured Karin, knowing that the redhead was fully aware of what their plans had been if Konoha had been attacked, but needing to reassure herself of it anyway. "See you when it's over?"

"Kick some ass for me," the redhead replied, tossing her hair.

"Stop right there," a voice called, and Sakura turned to see Ino and Shikamaru facing off against them as civilians scurried for shelter. "You aren't to make a move unless we order you to."

"Look here," Karin spat, unrolling her scroll partially, enough to summon the katana she had learned to master. "Right now, we are the best fucking chance you have, so if you want this village to still be standing when night comes, let us go where we need to go."

"How can we trust that you had nothing to do with it, since you clearly expected it?" Shikamaru drawled, but Sakura was busy watching his shadows for any signs of movement. He was the hidden threat, while Ino drew their attention.

"She's the best sensor any country has ever had," Sakura jerked her thumb at Karin, who bared her teeth at the pair. "A week ago, she sensed a rogue Uchiha that we've been keeping an eye out for enter Konoha's boundaries. He met with two parties from Konoha. We have three explosions, that's three points of attack. My shishou made plans to help defend Konoha if an attack came. If you want to help us, get out of the way, or we'll just waste time and chakra going through you."

"We have to clear activity of foreign nationals in a crisis situation with the Hokage or jounin commander," Ino said firmly. "Otherwise you'll be considered hostile forces."

"Ino-pig, _get the fuck out of our way_ ," Sakura growled, preparing to engage her former friend in combat if that was what it was going to take to get the blonde to stand down. "I don't have time to fight with you when your precious Sasuke-kun is busy throwing a temper tantrum."

The Yamanaka went pale so quickly Sakura wondered if she was going to fall over in a faint. " _Sakura_?"

"Guilty as charged." Shikamaru's shadows snaked out towards Karin, the Nara keeping his head despite the revelation, but the redhead leapt clear at Sakura's handsignalled warning. "Shikamaru, you can interrogate us all you want later, but trust me, you want us out in the field right now more than you may want us behind bars. We've trained _specifically_ to take down opponents like the ones who are attacking."

He studied her for a moment, and then nodded. "Where do you think we might be best served?"

Mind racing, Sakura thought about it for a short moment before motioning to Karin and herself. "Escort us so we're not mistaken for the enemy. Ino, with Karin, Shikamaru, with me. Don't be surprised, we'll be bringing two others in to help shut these guys down."

Ino looked at Shikamaru, but moved towards Karin when he nodded. "You owe me an explanation Forehead-girl," she snapped as the pair took off towards wherever the masked Uchiha was fighting against Konoha's defenders.

"Whatever you do," Sakura drawled as she ran her thumb down the sequence of summoning seals that would call her pack to her, "stay out of my hunt."

Before he could ask, her pack was around her, Kuro at her side and the others behind. "One teenager, Uchiha, so sharingan, he's got the mangekyou," she declared. "Karin gave me a location, so my lead. We'll be bringing my sensei along as well, so don't be alarmed when he shows up." As an afterthought, she added: "Try not to hurt too many of the Konoha shinobi. The Nara's our liaison."

Kuro chuckled lightly. "We'll try not to scare the children."

* * *

Kyo was on his way to the unbridled malice brewing by the Hokage Mountain, but Orochimaru knew that his place was elsewhere, that while the focus was on the much louder explosions happening as Konoha shinobi rushed to defend their village, the snake hidden in the grass would be preparing to strike.

As he had expected, the Hokage's office was busy, Tsunade snapping orders as her ANBU guards hovered protectively nearby. Nara Shikaku was studying a map of the village, pointing at the places where the two attacks were coming from by the looks of it, and a trio of genin were hovering nearby, waiting to take messages to those waiting in the standby station.

"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave now," Jiraiya's voice said as Orochimaru swept through the door, still wearing his manipulated face, his clan markings hidden and his eye color dulled. "We're in the middle of a situation, as you have probably noticed."

"I've come to help," Orochimaru retorted, folding his arms across his chest and tucking his hands into his sleeves in what seemed like a non-threatening gesture, but was really a way of accessing the senbon secreted there. He was no sensor, not like Uzumaki Karin or Senju Tobirama, but once he had a lock on the seal he was looking for, he was able to find it, warping the chakra patterns of the bearer. All of the ANBU he could sense were bound by it, not that he was surprised. It would be easy to slowly integrate the shinobi into the Hokage's guard, easy to do it slowly, even easier when Tsunade had been out of the village for years, unfamiliar with the active rosters. "Did you know that there are traitors among your midst?"

In a single smooth movement, he spun, sending his senbon towards the ANBU guards. Two of the quartet deflected them, but he had hit the other two. They staggered, but remained upright.

 _Not for long_ , Orochimaru thought as he released the jutsus masking his true face. There had been enough poison daubed onto those senbon to make Hoshigaki falter, enough to sap a jinchuuriki's strength. For all of the careful training, the conditioning, ROOT shinobi were simply that: shinobi.

Only four people might be able to save them now, and none of them would be willing to, once they knew the full story.

The room stilled as his face rearranged itself into familiar lines, and he knew without even looking that his clan markings and eyes were fully visible. Ignoring Jiraiya gawping at his side, Orochimaru turned to Tsunade, who was staring at his with narrowed eyes. Dipping into a slight bow, never taking his eyes off the shinobi that surrounded him, Orochimaru murmured: "I have come to help. My squad is already heading for the intrusions. We...have trained, for such an event. You have nothing to fear from us."

"Last time you were in Konoha, the Sandaime died on your sword," Shikaku replied lazily, dismissing the genin that hovered around him like flies. "How are we to believe you?"

"You have your ninjutsu back," Tsunade said, before Orochimaru could answer the Nara. "I...it was permanent…"

"It was a seal," Orochimaru said with a shrug, feeling movement behind him. "But seals can always be undone."

He heard the movement behind him, shifted so that he could catch the kunai flying at him, and let his tongue slither out, knowing that the sight was more in line with his...less than savory former pursuits, but needing to unnerve. "I am sealed no more, _Danzo_."

* * *

Kakashi was...taking his time to have all the facts before drawing his conclusions.

That's what he'd tell the Hokage anyway.

(They all knew it was bullshit and he was running away, as usual.)

He had been to his clan's home. (His home, once upon a time when the world wasn't so goddamn broken, when he wasn't a mess.) Alone, he had gone through each and every room, carefully rummaging through every container that might store a scroll that had been passed down from parent to child since their clan was founded. It was something that he wasn't willing to trust a genin team to do.

How could they, how could _he_ let them, go through the house like it was a mission, looking for a scroll their client wanted with no sense of the _significance_ of it?

There may be no such thing as ghosts, but Kakashi knew better. Ghosts were carried with you, the souls of those you failed, those you left behind, and those you couldn't let go of.

Invariably, this house brought out all of his ghosts.

After he had been through every room (even _that_ room, the tatami still stained, still smelling of copper and death) he had left the house, without the scroll. Just as he had suspected, just as all of them had suspected, the scroll was gone, in the hands of a new summoner.

But who would _want_ it? The White Fang was still considered largely a failure, the Hatake clan only vaguely well known because of him, because of his father's shame. Who would have gone into the empty house for the sole purpose of taking a summoning scroll? Who would have known that Kakashi hadn't taken it, hadn't used it himself?

All the signs pointed to a Konoha shinobi, since he kept his pack as his trump card, only used them to scent trails and restrain enemies who he had no intention of keeping alive. Only Konoha shinobi would know that he had abandoned everything that his father had lived by, lived for, until Obito…

He was at the graveyard when the explosions began, standing in front of Obito's grave, trying not to look at his father's, trying not to see the bright splashes of red on several graves, the flowers on Kushina's grave as red as her hair, a matching flower on Minato-sensei's…

Grateful for the distraction, the simple routine of find threat, neutralize threat, repair damages and move forward, he moved towards the closest one, the intruder near the Hokage Mountain.

Unsurprisingly, he wasn't the first one there.

A redhead, hair tied up in a high ponytail, golden chains lashing out at the cloaked opponent, nearly made him choke before he remembered hearing about the Uzushio shinobi, hearing that one of them was a redheaded Uzumaki woman who was just as fierce as Kushina had been. He had...gone out of his way to avoid them, not wanting to see her and remember, not wanting to think about Kushina's son, who had apparently hated Konoha so much that he had run off, hadn't found it worth staying for.

(He had also heard about the redhead's partner, heard that she had soundly beaten his last remaining student, and he couldn't help but wonder how she had managed to convince everyone that she had beaten the tsukiyomi. It was impossible, he knew that. A clever feint, but she couldn't have done as she claimed.)

There was a man with her, also wearing the spiral hitai-ite of Uzushio, twirling a double bladed staff as he lunged for the cloaked shinobi who was nimbly avoiding the chains doing their utmost to impale him. As he moved forward, the redhead withdrew, and as she fell back slightly, she saw Kakashi.

"You going to just sit there, or are you going to help?" she snapped, sending another barrage of chains against the shinobi, who batted them away with the gunbai his was holding. "This is your village, Hatake."

It surprised him that she knew who he was. Most shinobi knew him as the Copy-nin, or Sharingan no Kakashi, but she referred to him as _Hatake_. Setting aside the puzzle, he let chakra build up in one hand, pushing his hitai-ite out of the way as he watched for the moment to strike.

By the time the moment came, his ears were ringing with the bird sounds that had given the technique it's first name, and he struck at the man who was keeping both Uzushio shinobi at bay, whose wide-ranging techniques were keeping most of the arriving Konoha shinobi busy evacuating the immediate area instead of jumping into the middle of a fight that already seemed to be walking on a tightrope.

As his hand passed right through the man's intangible body, he had only a moment for surprise before a golden chain latched onto his arm and pulled him out of the way as the gunbai nearly came down on his neck.

"You idiot," the redhead hissed, tossing him casually into a bit of open space. "He can go _intangible at will_. Haven't you noticed that what he can't dodge, he phases through? Just sit there and stay out of our way for a few minutes more if that's the best you can do."

Mildly insulted, Kakashi rose to his feet and watched the pair of foreign shinobi move around their opponent, keeping him in the center of the battlefield. His eyes narrowed as he saw the older man's staff dip into the ground, cutting a clear set of lines into the ground as he pivoted out of the way of a hit from the chain attached to the end of the gunbai.

A sudden surge of chakra made everyone in the area pause, and then Kakashi was blinking at the tall redheaded man who was standing next to the Uzumaki girl, his own hair swept back in a ponytail.

"Nice of you to show up Nagato," the girl said grimly, using her chains to strike out at the cloaked shinobi. "I assume the last member of our merry band made it as well?"

"He's going to her as planned," the redhead said, turning to face the masked man. "Also, if we finish this fight first, Suigetsu's going to lose a great deal of money to our cousin."

The grin on the Uzumaki woman's face was downright _scary_ , even more frightening than Kushina's when ramen was on the line.

"Then let's get moving," she called, fishing a pair of kunai from her sleeves. "We're just about to get the fun part started."


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty-Two:**

The buildings outside the Uchiha Compound were burning.

Sakura's pack spread out behind her, moving off into the smoke at her signal. As she walked forward, towards the sounds of a fight she could hear happening in the center of the destruction, not far from the gates of the Uchiha Compound, she shaped the handsigns she would need to call the water from the lake nearby.

It crashed down on the burning buildings, replacing the smoke with hissing steam. Hopefully she had arrived in time to prevent serious injuries, but with the fires out, there would be fewer burns and deaths from smoke inhalation.

As the steam filled the area, the sounds of the fight lessened.

Most shinobi struggled when their senses were cut down. Sakura was no Inuzuka, but the pack had trained her in fighting without sight, in scent tracking, in listening...the steam would pose few problems for her. But because so much of this fight relied on the showmanship, the carefully calculated moves to push Sasuke off-balance, she let loose a clumsy fuuton jutsu, one Naruto had taught her. Fuuton jutsus didn't come easily to her, not like mizu or katon, but this was an easy one, just enough wind to clear some of the steam between her and Sasuke.

There was a pile of shinobi at Sasuke's feet, and his unsheathed katana had blood on it. From the way the occasional groan escaped the pile, and how she could see sides and chests moving with the shinobis' breathing, she knew that most of them were likely still alive, but out of the fight for the moment. As a medic, she theoretically ought to go to them. But she was training to be Black Ops, and her first and foremost place in the events of the day was shutting down Sasuke.

"Still throwing temper tantrums I see," she drawled, and Sasuke's head snapped towards her so fast that she wondered if she should be concerned about whiplash. "You haven't changed much. Caught up in your own hurt feelings and low self-esteem."

"My self-esteem is fine," he snarled, flicking some of the blood off his katana. "Don't talk as if you know me, Uzushio kunoichi."

"Oh, everyone who's spent five minutes in your company is aware of how much you hold us in contempt," Sakura snorted, palming the senbon tucked into her remaining sleeve. "But you're nothing compared to Itachi."

 _That_ made him twitch, his eyes, mangekyou already activated, almost attempting to burn a hole through her. "You know _nothing_ about that man."

"On the contrary, Sasuke. I know much, much more about your brother than you do. And I guarantee you that he's not going to be happy when he hears what you're doing in the name of getting revenge for him." As he focused on her words, he missed seeing the handsigns she slipped through, partially obscured by the fabric of her sleeve, the subtle genjutsu taking hold. Unlike most of her usual repertoire, this was meant to get inside his head, to throw him further off balance than he already was.

"Konoha killed my clan and made him a missing-nin!" the Uchiha snarled, lunging for her. "Why shouldn't I get revenge?"

"Four men killed your clan," Sakura snapped, parrying his katana with a kunai as she jabbed at him with a handful of senbon. They weren't poisoned, but dipped in her best paralytic, which would give her the opportunity to disable Sasuke's sharingan. Orochimaru had recommended leaving Sasuke alive; hopefully having their own pet Uchiha would keep Konoha from raising too much of a fuss about Itachi's presence in Konoha. While a draft issuing of pardons for past crimes, providing Uzushio take responsibility for future transgressions, had been agreed upon, the final document wasn't in place, and the list of Konoha defectors in Uzushio's ranks hadn't been revealed. "Itachi. Shimura Danzo. Sarutobi Hiruzen. And the man calling himself Uchiha Madara."

"What would you know, you stupid kunoichi?" he hissed as she dodged another strike, spinning just out of range before darting back in. Somewhere in the dissipating steam, her pack circled, keeping others away and making sure that if Sasuke attempted to run, he'd be brought down immediately. Shikamaru was theoretically out there as well, though she couldn't pinpoint where he was. "Peddle your lies somewhere else."

"Uchiha Shisui's death wasn't a suicide," she breathed into his ear as her next dodge brought her close enough. "It was murder."

"I know that!" Sasuke bellowed, sharingan blazing. "That man, _Itachi_ , murdered him." Her genjutsu was fully embedded in him, making him sloppy as he lunged for her as she danced out of reach. She was working him into a blind rage, making sure that when she brought out her other genjutsus, he would be too distracted to notice.

" _Shimura Danzo_ ripped out Shisui's sharingan, driving Shisui to drown himself in the Nakano to prevent him from getting both of Shisui's eyes. Itachi found Shisui moments before he leapt into the river." Sakura had lived that moment over and over again in dreams, knew that Itachi saw it every time he activated his sharingan. "And then Danzo orchestrated the massacre, using your brother as a tool."

"That's not how it happened," her former teammate spat as another one of his strikes was blocked on her kunai. "Itachi murdered them all because the Sandaime ordered him to."

"Your clan was plotting a rebellion," Sakura shouted, kicking Sasuke back. "Danzo sabotaged them at every turn, and then gave Itachi the orders to kill every member of the clan, but he couldn't kill _you_. The man calling himself Uchiha Madara helped him do it!"

As he lunged for her again, she continued: "When Itachi reported to the Sandaime, the entire matter could have been exposed, but instead it was buried. Itachi took the fall in return for your safety. He didn't want you to grow up being known as the second son of a treasonous clan head. It was his goal for you to kill him because then your clan could be redeemed and begun anew."

"How would _you_ know? You're not even from Konoha!"

"Oh, but I am," Sakura drawled, finally channelling chakra to the seal practically burning on her right shoulder. "Don't you recognize me, _Sasuke-kun_? I'm hurt."

"I was there when you faced the Demon Brothers," she spat, stalking forward, batting aside the kunai he threw. "I was there when you nearly died on the bridge in Wave, and I was there when my shishou set his curse mark in you. And I was the one you left on a bench one cold night when you decided that Konoha wasn't good enough for you." A flick of her fingers, and the genjutsus she had been holding in reserve were activated. It was subtle, but Sasuke hopefully wouldn't notice that what he saw was always a few steps behind what was happening, that what he heard was always too late, in the wrong direction, or not present at all.

"Sakura," he snarled, moving to impale her with his katana, but she sidestepped. "Hypocrite."

"My first loyalty was never to Konoha," she hissed, swiping out with her kunai in a feint as she worked to get her senbon to pierce his skin, delivering the paralytic. "It was always to Uzushio, even when I didn't know what her name was. But you wouldn't understand loyalty like that, would you? You ran away the moment my shishou tempted you."

"You're the one who he left me for?" Sasuke was livid, almost at the point she wanted him. A familiar chakra signature was lurking just out of sight, and she needed to set up his entrance. "Orochimaru left _me_ to train _you_ , some clanless nobody?"

"You sound like a spurned lover, Sasuke," a cool voice said from behind them, and Sakura sighed. She had hoped to push a few more of Sasuke's buttons before Itachi entered the fray, brought to her by the seal inked onto her shoulder which was linked to one that Naruto had presumably charged, allowing Itachi and Nagato to be transported instantly the moment Karin and Sakura needed them. But she had to work with what she was given.

Taking advantage of Sasuke's distraction, she stabbed one of her senbon into his shoulder, and for good measure, stabbed three more into wherever she could find skin. As he turned his attention back to her, she caught his chin in her grasp, forcing him to look into her eyes.

"There's no use in trying to put me under tsukiyomi," she whispered as her chakra slipped into his system. "No sharingan will be able to hold me there any longer."

Carefully, she disabled his optical nerve, watching as his anger was replaced by panic.

"What did you do to me you bitch?" he screamed, fighting the paralytic that was running through his veins. "Why can't I see?"

"You can't be trusted to not turn on your village," Itachi said coolly, watching as Sakura released Sasuke's chin. "So until Konoha's council has time to deal with you, we're making sure that you're incapable of causing trouble."

Before Sasuke could respond, a piercing howl went up from the slowly dissipating steam. Sakura froze, and then looked at Itachi.

"Go," he said, eyes fixed on his brother, who was crumpling to the ground, unable to support himself as he fought the paralytic in his system. "Run with your pack, and then find Orochimaru, just like the plan."

With a brief nod, she was running towards the howl of her pack, leaving the Uchiha brothers alone for the first time in a decade.

* * *

Karin was fed up with the mystery Uchiha and she'd only been fighting him for ten minutes.

She was also fed up with anyone who wasn't from Uzushio, since Konoha's shinobi were proving themselves useless.

Hatake kept trying to jump in and do something that he probably thought was amazing, but usually ended up setting her back another minute as she attempted to get the goddamn seal on the ground so they could stop dealing with that stupid time-space jutsu the Uchiha was using. Half the time, the idiot needed to be pulled out before he went and got himself killed, which was even worse. From the scowl on his face, Nagato felt the same, since he was stuck distracting the Uchiha while Karin and Kyo tried to lay the seal down.

They were only a few anchors short. _One more down_ , she thought as she dragged her foot through the dirt, shaping one of the anchors needed to shape the seal. Unlike most seals shinobi were familiar with, Uzushio shinobi, and Uzumaki in particular, prided themselves in being able to freehand seals on the fly, customizing them as needed. Karin had been told that she was particularly skilled, but to her it just felt natural, the way that the seal took shape in her head.

This seal was one they had worked out ahead of time, designed to stop any and all time-space jutsus being worked within its borders, and confining those without the transfer seal within the borders so the Uchiha couldn't just slip his leash. In Karin's opinion, it was a work of art, the way it came together from the eight anchor points and application of chakra in four places.

Finding a fourth was always going to be tricky, but they had assumed Konoha shinobi would want to be part of the fight, and Hatake could _probably_ be relied upon to form handseals and donate some chakra. _Probably_.

Another fluctuation of chakra as the seventh anchor was placed, and Karin brought her attention back to the fight, noting that Nagato was doing a fair job of distracting the Uchiha, with Hatake's help, but she needed to get that anchor in place _quickly_.

Using her chains to mask her movements, she shifted towards the bare place where the seal belonged, making sure to snatch Hatake out of danger again and deposit him vaguely where he was supposed to be if he was going to be their fourth. Feeling a snarl rumbling up in her chest, the same type of snarl Naruto had made when he had been told that none of the jinchuuriki were allowed anywhere near this final conflict, she dug her heel into the ground, carving the anchors as deep as she could with the help of a little bit of chakra.

The moment she felt the anchor seals snap into place, waiting to be called upon, she whistled with every scrap of air in her lungs. Kyo heard it, he could feel it, and Karin saw Nagato's head snap up in concentration as he moved back to the anchor seal opposite Kyo, looking for all intents and purposes as if he was preparing a ranged attack.

As expected, Hatake looked thoroughly confused, but Karin hauled him out of the way of a strike that would likely have decapitated him, bringing him close enough to whisper: "Seal opposite me," and show him the sequence of handsigns he would need. Thankfully, he seemed to follow, sharingan eye fixed on her hands until she threw him across the battlefield with her chains.

After he got to his feet, she started gathering her chakra as she flashed through the hand signs, gratified to feel the others doing the same. The masked Uchiha had a moment of disoriented panic before he tried to reach for his time-space jutsu, but Karin yelled in triumph as the seal activated, spreading across the ground in a ripple of dark ink. It held him for a moment, and then she clasped her hand around the blade of her katana before slapping her now-bleeding palm on the ground, directly over the anchor seal she was positioned at.

With a bellow, the masked Uchiha was spat out, landing in a disorganized heap at the center of the seal, now unbreakable with the addition of Karin's blood to the anchor. If she hadn't sealed it in blood, enough chakra, or disruption of the anchor seals, would break it, but her blood would strengthen it.

Kyo, Nagato, and even Hatake were following suit, which would only make it practically impenetrable.

Smirking, Karin stepped into the bounds of the seal. "Not so cocky now, are you?" she taunted, eyes peeled on the heap of flesh and cloth in the center. "Time to pay the piper, Uchiha."

"Only an Uzumaki," the man growled, pushing himself to his feet, "could be so positively irritating."

"At your service," Karin said, voice dripping with sweetness. "I'm Uzumaki Karin and I'm making sure that you pay for what you did to my aunt and cousins."

"We're not here for vengeance Karin," Nagato said sternly, rinnegan trained on the Uchiha. "He's a threat to all of us."

"So that's where you went, _Pein_ ," the masked man hissed, gunbai in hand as he looked around the circle at them, Karin and Nagato advancing, Kyo finishing the seal that would allow Kakashi passage in and out of the seal's boundaries. "Do your friends know who you really are?"

"I am Uzumaki Nagato, head of the Uzumaki clan," the redhead said, stretching out a hand. "I danced to your tune for far too long, but I'm here to finish you."

"Bold words for a crying brat," the Uchiha retorted, but was soon flattened against the ground by the force of one of Nagato's rinnegan-based jutsus. As Karin approached, prepared to remove the mask and finally see who had been playing them all like puppets, she was thrown back by a sudden outlash of greenery.

"Mokuton," Hatake whispered, the sound travelling across the silent battlefield as Karin picked herself up from the ground. "But...how?"

* * *

The room settled into a cold stillness as Orochimaru stared at the man who had guided far too much of his adult life. As always, at least when he wasn't pretending to be only a councilman, Danzo was flanked by a squadron of ROOT agents, blank faced as always.

Danzo had never truly been able to reduce Orochimaru to feel nothing; Uzushio had protected him from that, even in the darkest moments. And his research had brought a certain amount of satisfaction and joy that could not be erased.

It had always felt like a victory, being able to hold himself apart from Danzo even that tiny amount. When Danzo had brought the world crashing down around his ears, betraying him to Sarutobi the moment that Orochimaru ceased to be useful…

He had learned on a battlefield in Ame not to build his hopes into one basket, not to make his world one thing and one thing only. It served him well here, having Oto, having Kabuto and Kimimaro, having the Sound Four, even if he wasn't at a place where he could call them students, call them companions yet. But now he had Uzushio, and in her was Kabuto and Sakura, the first of his students to willingly seek him out. In Uzushio he experienced a sense of community that Konoha had never shown him. His sins were openly known, and it would take the rest of his life to fully regain their trust, but he could be useful, his contributions welcome, he could walk down the streets and not be scorned for his very existence.

Orochimaru knew what it was like to be a very good shinobi, but a very poor human being. Konoha would never be able to wrap their minds around it, find the answer in their hearts. They knew how to make good humans be good shinobi, but couldn't comprehend the reverse.

Only three people had tried, and two of them were staring at his back as he met Danzo's remaining eye warily.

"So, the prodigal child has returned," Danzo murmured as the ROOT shinobi spread out around him, unashamedly marking their targets. "Come to kill another Hokage, Orochimaru?"

"I'm hardly the first person in this room to try and kill Sarutobi," Orochimaru replied, raising an eyebrow. "I'm just the only one who managed to do it. But it's true what they say. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Hatake was a foolish choice for an assassin. Your bungling that decision lost you two agents and put Sarutobi on his guard. He never fully trusted you after that, did he?"

"Sarutobi should have eliminated me, and eliminated Hatake," Danzo agreed, moving forward, his cane making light tapping sounds. "Yet the roots of the great tree were allowed to grow and thrive."

"The roots are rotten," Orochimaru hissed, drawing Kusanagi from its sheath at his waist. "Anything you touch, you leave decay and ruin in your wake. How deeply did you bury the evidence of what happened the night of Uchiha Shisui's death? How much deeper did you bury the evidence of what followed?"

Danzo tsked. "Someone's been telling tales," he chided, reaching for the bandages covering his eye. "A shame, that boy was always the best of that clan."

"Shimura Danzo," Tsunade's voice was colder than Orochimaru had ever heard it before. "Are you somehow responsible for the Uchiha Massacre?"

"You might also add the deaths of Uchiha Shisui and Yahiko no Amegakure," Orochimaru offered lightly, eyes fixed on the unraveling bandages. Danzo had two research goals for him, and while his experiences with Mokuton had been dragged into the light, his experiments on kekkei genkai, specifically doujutsu, had never been discovered. Someone had stolen his notes from his laboratory the day the Sandaime confronted him, and Orochimaru had always suspected Danzo's hand in it. "I'd also look into Hatake Sakumo's death, and perhaps Dan's, if I was the suspicious sort."

Choked noises from behind him meant that his barbs had hit their marks. _Good_. If his cruel words spurred his former teammates into taking action against the snake in their midst, so be it. Konoha would be better without Danzo's influence lurking in the shadows.

"Yahiko was the only one who died that day?" Jiraiya said slowly, and Orochimaru could picture the look of contemplation that was on his face without sparing more than a moment to consider it. "What about Konan, and Nagato?"

"They survived," he said offhandedly, watching as Danzo abandoned the bandages on his eye in favor of those on his arm. "Nagato is an Uzumaki; it takes a great deal to get rid of one."

"I was surprised when Uzushio fell," Danzo interrupted smoothly. "With the Uzumaki and others present, my predictions were that it would weaken Kiri, potentially causing them to pull out of the war. When word came that the citadel had been broken, I had to rearrange all my plans."

Orochimaru stilled. For all the theories on the citadel's fall, none of them had ever thought Danzo, or another Konoha leader, was involved. They had all just assumed that Konoha had ignored their lone distress message.

A slow smile began to spread on Danzo's face. "For all your knowledge, you still do not know everything Orochimaru. Sarutobi should have put you down when he had the chance. No matter; nobody will be leaving this room alive."

* * *

As Sakura dashed through the steam, she was unsurprised to find Kuro running alongside her.

"We have a sealed-one," he informed her gravely. "He was going to interfere with your hunt, but Yuki and Ami stopped him."

 _Sealed-one_. Most likely one of Danzo's subordinates then. It would make sense; Sasuke was a loose cannon, set free in Konoha to cause as much destruction as possible while the rogue Uchiha and Danzo carried out their own plans. She would need to neutralize him before she could join Orochimaru in taking down Danzo himself.

"Lead the way," she murmured, signalling to Shikamaru, who she could sense in the shadows, watching. She might need his help, depending on what this subordinate was capable of.

Yuki and Ami, the best hunters in her pack, had cornered their prey in the Uchiha district, near the Nakano river. Sakura suppressed a shiver as she realized how close they were to where Shisui had died.

A dark haired boy was facing off against the other four members of her pack, a group of strange creatures surrounding him. As she watched, he drew something on the paper in front of him, and all of the sudden another large shape peeled off the scroll, leaving only crisp whiteness behind.

"That's a nifty trick," Sakura commented, making certain that all of her poisoned senbon were close at hand. "Did Danzo teach you that?"

He made no reply, and Sakura motioned for Kuro to go and join the perimeter around the boy that her pack had created. "Tell me, shinobi-san, why were you tasked to watch Uchiha Sasuke?"

She tsked as he simply drew another of his creatures. "What, _seal_ got your tongue?"

This got his attention. "How do you know about that?" he asked, tone flat.

"Oh, shinobi-san," she sighed, tapping her finger on her chin. She had to wrap this up quickly and get to her shishou. If things went poorly for him, he'd be facing off against two of the sannin and Danzo, which were not odds that any of them had favored, even for him. "It's obvious enough, if you know what Danzo's been doing in Konoha's shadows. Now, what were your orders regarding Uchiha Sasuke?" If his creatures were anything like clones, she would be able to knock them out in a single blow, but she couldn't risk confronting him in open combat, not knowing his skillset. If he was one of Danzo's puppets, he would likely be ANBU level, if not better, and she couldn't afford to waste the time and chakra for an open brawl.

"I cannot tell you my orders." She had expected that, but her questions were merely stalling for time, trying to figure out a way to take him out without actually engaging him. About to call on her speed and hope it was enough, her pack being capable of shutting down the strange creatures for long enough to let her inside his guard, she paused for a moment, seeing the shadows nearby acting strangely.

She had nearly forgotten about Shikamaru, standing here by the Nakano. The boy probably didn't know that she wasn't alone, that she had an ally in the Konoha shinobi who was staying out of sight. Shikamaru's shadows, her speed and poisons…

Making up her mind, Sakura flew through the handseals that she had practiced over and over again, putting as much chakra as she dared into the jutsu.

Danzo's puppet had only enough time to blink before half the Nakano dropped on his head.

When the water drained back into the river, he was frozen in place, arms instinctively raised to cover his face. The ink he had been using mixed with the river water, the scroll sodden with the mixture; both unusable. He had lost his brush in the deluge, and all of his creatures were gone.

Her pack had moved out of the way just in time, recognizing the handseals as she finished the set, and they gathered around as she approached the boy.

Studying him for a moment, she made a snap decision. "Stick out your tongue." Sakura knew that it would be faster just to jab a senbon into his unguarded neck, to dose him with the same paralytic she had used on Sasuke and then knock him out, but she was curious.

Thankfully, Shikamaru had decided to be obliging, and she was soon staring at the dark seal inked onto the boy's tongue.

"Curious," she murmured, reaching in gently with her chakra to probe it. She could suss out how it linked him to Danzo, bound his secrets up in a single knot that no interrogator would be able to undo.

Seals were more Karin's strength than hers, but Sakura had Uzushio blood in her veins, and had the advantage of living with Karin. Carefully, so as not to damage the tongue, she altered the seal, teasing apart the knot and breaking the linkage. Konoha would need someone to question, and here was a shinobi practically trussed up and waiting for them.

When she was finished, she stabbed a senbon deep into his neck and watched as the shadows retracted and the boy collapsed.

"He'll be unconscious until the senbon is removed, and paralyzed until his system breaks down the toxin or he gets the antidote." As an afterthought, she reached down and blocked the parts of his nervous system that controlled motion. Someone would have to fix him later, but at least he wouldn't be up and running away. With healers like Tsunade in residence, Konoha should be able to completely undo what she had just done without leaving a trace behind.

Shikamaru ambled out from the shadows, raising his eyebrow at the shinobi lying on the ground. "He was placed with Hatake and some other jounin to work with Sasuke after you left," the Nara explained. "I think his name was Sai."

"He's a plant from Shimura Danzo's private ANBU force," Sakura said coolly, wondering why he was watching her warily if he had just helped her take the shinobi down. "My quarrel is with the councilman, not with Konoha."

"Tell me the truth," the Nara said, eyes cold. "Was what you told Sasuke about the Uchiha Massacre accurate, or something you made up to throw him off balance?"

"By the citadel of Uzushio," Sakura swore softly, hoping he could read the truth in her eyes, hoping he could understand that when she swore by the citadel, that was a promise she would never, ever break, "I spoke the truth."

"Troublesome." Shikamaru blew out a heavy breath. "Well, lead on then. Where to next?"

"Danzo," Sakura snarled, and she turned to her pack, knowing that this was the hunt they had been preparing for since the prospect of returning to Konoha had arisen. "Do you have the scent?"

"All sealed-ones lead back to the seal-master," Kuro said, his tone scornful of her even having to ask. "We have the scent."

A brief nod from her, and Kuro sat back on his haunches, tipped his head back, and howled. The eerie sound cut through the noise of the battles raging across Konoha, and Sakura couldn't help but grin. Half of her actions in this fight had been planned to leave an impact, to grandstand, to draw the attention from the true dangers. That grandstanding had been enough to take Sasuke down, and hopefully there were those in Konoha that still remembered the last shinobi to run with the wolves.

Her pack joined the chorus for a moment, and then they were off running, Yasu, the best tracker at their lead. Sakura fell into her own position, knowing that if Shikamaru was serious about following her to the next battlefield, he would.

She had a score to settle with Danzo, for her shishou, for her sensei, and for the boy whom she had once called her teammate.

 *****Sorry about not updating last week- I'm shitty with fight scenes and this chapter, as you've noticed, should have been full of them but were mostly just people shouting at each other while attempts at killing each other go on in the background. Hopefully I'll have it under control for next week.*****


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Twenty-Three:**

The battlefield was silent for a long moment, and then a piercing howl broke the stillness.

Karin reached out to steady Hatake, who had gone bone-white where he stood next to her. Under her hand, she could feel him shaking, tiny, minute tremors that she probably wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the contact.

She hadn't heard it before, but knew what it was. Sakura had picked up a trail, had started a hunt. Karin couldn't help but pity the poor victim. Her roommate was just as tenacious as the wolves she had contracted with, and that poor soul would be lucky to escape unscathed.

" _Oh_ ," the masked Uchiha said, drawing the sound out in low amusement, "Has someone resurrected the White Fang? I thought you had exiled the only Konoha shinobi willing to consider Edo Tensai."

"Hatake Sakumo may be dead, but his contract passed to another," Karin said with a shrug, feeling the corner of her mouth twitch upward in a grin. "You might have bumped into her before? They're calling her _the Uchiha-who-wasn't_ in Kiri these days." At least those in the know were calling Sakura that. But the name would hopefully rile up the man standing in the center of the seal, a tangle of woody vines surrounding him.

"It's wasn't that bitch Terumi?" he muttered, and Karin scowled.

"She at least had the guts to go up against your puppet for the sake of her country," Nagato said mildly, cutting in before Karin could snap at the Uchiha. "While the major countries have trampled over the smaller ones in their power struggles, they at least have had the decency not to turn us into puppets."

"You talk so smoothly _Pein_ , it's easy to see how to convened a group of missing-nin to take over the world, using the biju as your pawns."

"He was trying to _help_ the world," Karin hissed, letting go of Hatake as the tremors subsided.

"So am I," the Uchiha snarled. "This world is all wrong, and I'm going to _fix_ it. How is he different than me?"

"He saw the error of his ways," Kyo contributed, spinning his staff lazily. "And not only did he admit it, but he spent considerable time and effort attempting to repair the damage."

"I am trying to fix the world! You should be thanking me! This world is all lies!"

"Just like you are?" the redhead snapped, stepping towards him and avoiding the wayward vines as easily as she dodged her own chains during practices. "Not one of us here actually believes that you're Uchiha Madara, just so you know." She was likely being generous, since none of the Konoha shinobi seemed as if they had made that leap in understanding, but it didn't matter. "So why don't you drop that stupid mask and start getting rid of all the lies."

The Uchiha directed more of the mokuton created vines towards her, making it harder and harder for her to advance. But she used her katana to cut through or deflect those she couldn't avoid, and inch by inch she drew closer.

All of the sudden, it felt as if a giant hammer was pressing her into the ground.

Managing to turn her head, she glared at Nagato, who looked faintly sheepish.

The pressure surrounding her eased up slightly, and Karin took advantage of it, getting to her feet and continuing towards the man now flattened against the ground, greenery struggling to thwart one of the more devastating manifestations of the rinnegan's powers.

* * *

As the eerie howl reverberated through the room, Orochimaru arched an eyebrow at Danzo, who had stilled. "Do you remember the White Fang, Danzo?"

"He was a _disgrace_ ," the old man spat, snatching at the bandages on his arm. "Hatake did the village a favor when he committed suicide."

Baring his teeth at the elder, Orochimaru sneered: "My apprentice is an even more dedicated hunter than the White Fang was. There is no escape from your crimes, old man."

"Will you two stop nattering at each other," Tsunade growled, the sound of breaking wood refreshingly familiar in the background. "Shimura Danzo, you are hereby stripped of your position on the Council of Elders, and should consider yourself under arrest from this point forward. If you resist, you will be apprehended with all necessary force."

Orochimaru couldn't resist a smirk, and Jiraiya's snicker was as clearly audible as Nara Shikaku's muttered: " _troublesome_ ".

For one more fight, the sannin were united. United for the first time since they had fought Hanzo on Ame's bloody fields.

At some unseen command, the ROOT soldiers leapt into the room, heading for all of the shinobi gathered there as Danzo advanced forward, eyes locked on Orochimaru. Darting a glance back at the genin crowded around Shikaku, Orochimaru hissed in fury as he saw three ROOT agents targeting them as Shikaku was busy stopping another trio from reaching the Hokage, who was happily wading in with her fists.

Turning his back on Danzo, he moved for the genin, who had formed a rough triangle as they faced the oncoming opponents, kunai out. They were only trembling a slight amount, which he had to give them credit for. But genin were always foolhardy, still feeling as if they were invincible despite overwhelming odds stacked against them.

Reaching out, he snagged one of the ROOT agents' arms, using the shinobi's momentum to force a collision with one of the other masked shinobi. Bowling over the third, Orochimaru slapped a tag on the outer wall of the office before lunging for the genin, knocking them down as the seal detonated.

Back on his feet almost immediately, the sannin hauled up the most competent looking genin and thrust him towards the newly created exit. "Danzo has turned traitor and is attempting to overthrow the Hokage," he hissed, reaching for the rest of the boy's team. "Run; to the standby station and to any other grouping of Konoha shinobi you find. Spread the word. Tell them that the Uzushio shinobi are here to help, that Danzo is a traitor. Keep away from the battle by the mountain."

The boy launched himself out the window, his teammates scrambling to follow as Orochimaru faced off against the three ROOT shinobi who had targeted the genin in the first place. It was bad odds, three on one, but while these may be Danzo's elite, conditioned from childhood to be weapons, Orochimaru had years under his belt, and very few shinobi could come close to matching him now.

A snarl was all the warning he got, enough for him to hit the deck once again, and there was a rush of displaced air overhead, and then the sound of bodies hitting the floor.

Careful hands helped him to his feet, and he raised an eyebrow at his apprentice, who was looking at her pack, wrestling with ROOT shinobi on the floor of the Hokage's office. "Uchiha went down that easily?"

"He was angry and distracted," she agreed, slapping a tag on one of the shinobi fighting with her wolves as they rolled towards her. The figure immediately went limp, and the wolf looked to her for instructions.

"Were those three genin yours?" Sakura asked, tipping her head towards the window.

"Messengers, of a sort."

"Kuro, take the pack and keep those kids safe," she called, and the wolf at her side snarled an order at the others before leaping back out the hole Orochimaru had created. She had time for a quick nod at him, and then she was diving towards one of the shinobi her wolves had abandoned, slowly picking himself off the floor with deep gashes in his chest.

Satisfied that she was well matched, Orochimaru dispatched another ROOT agent with poisoned senbon, enough to put the man down without actually killing him. All of them had decided that killing Konoha shinobi, even Danzo's brainwashed army, would be the last resort, only used when it was too dangerous not to. Their participation in a Konoha military situation would already be suspect enough without the added complication of a death toll.

Slowly he made his way towards Danzo, noting that his actions mirrored those of his former teammates. The old man stood alone, an island of calm as his mindless army rushed forward into the room through the door behind him. There seemed to be no end to them, and Orochimaru had to wonder if Tsunade had known about ROOT, had condoned it as a means to an end because Danzo had been so firmly entrenched that it would take something this devastating to remove him.

As they reached him, Danzo seemed to sigh, and then he let the bandages covering his eye and arm flutter slowly to the ground.

Jiraiya's snarl of rage, Tsunade's hiss of indrawn breath...both were background to the growl that came from his apprentice as every shinobi in the room stopped moving for a long moment.

"When you commissioned my research in doujutsu implementation, I had assumed you sought to replace your eye," the sannin murmured quietly. "But I see now that you were after something quite different. Hashirama's cells can only heal your body enough to keep it from rejecting those sharingan, especially with the strain you're under."

Something heavy hit a wall, and Orochimaru slid smoothly out of the way as Tsunade lunged forward, fists brimming with chakra.

He let her pound on him; it was her right as Hokage, and better press for Uzushio. Instead, he fell back to sort out ROOT agents with his apprentice, Shikaku, and Jiraiya. There was certainly plenty of work to go around.

A rush of air, and only an instinct that Orochimaru had learned long ago to trust save him as six kunai nearly embedded themselves in his back. As it was, the ROOT agent he had been fighting went down with a choked gasp.

Spinning, he caught another blade descending on Kusanagi, brought up in time to protect him from a strike that might have decapitated him. As Kusanagi sheared through the blade, Orochimaru snarled at the old man, who looked surprisingly healthy for having just been subjected to several minutes of Tsunade's wrath.

"You're supposed to be dead!" he heard Tsunade snap as she fought her way through the ROOT agents surrounding her. "I saw your chest cave in!"

"Well, he seems plenty healthy to me," Orochimaru taunted, feinting with a lunge as he moved to strike the arm he had attached for Danzo years before. Of course, it hadn't been filled with sharingan then, but…

Something caught his eye, and Orochimaru watched as one of the sharingan closed it's lids. Furiously digging through every bit of lore he had ever come across relating to the sharingan, he swore as the half forgotten memory came to mind.

"So, this was what you sought, Danzo?" he snarled, averting his movement the instant before it would have cleaved the transplanted arm from Danzo's shoulder. "Immortality, of a sorts?"

Orochimaru had considered the possibilities of Izanagi, but the requirement of both Senju and Uchiha DNA was difficult to manage, since the two clans rarely cooperated easily, even at a genetic level. Add that to the difficulty of retrieving and maintaining a viable sharingan, the chakra drain being significant even with his own reserves, and Izanagi's drain was nothing to take lightly. Already he could see Danzo slowing, unable to supplement his physical fitness with chakra as shinobi did instinctively at their age. Given that the man had yet to use any significant chakra techniques, it was to be expected that the drain of keeping the sharingan active, and now Izanagi, was going to be more of a hindrance than a help.

"Shiroyami," he called, and his apprentice was immediately at his shoulder, her previous opponent frothing at the mouth as he fell.

Her lip curled up with disgust as she took in the transplanted sharingan, and her eyes flamed as she stared at Danzo's mismatched eyes. " _Murderer_ ," she hissed, and he saw her palm her special senbon, the ones coated with the poison it had taken Sasori a day and a half to create an antidote for. "Since my sensei cannot, I will make you answer for the murder of Uchiha Shisui and every hour of suffering that Uchiha Itachi endured on your orders."

"Did he teach you of Izanagi?" Orochimaru asked, watching as Jiraiya and Tsunade shook off their ROOT agents and moved to surround Danzo. "Of the sharingan's greatest illusion, one that defies death itself?"

Looking up at him, Sakura snorted. "Despite my capabilities, I doubt that's one I'll be able to break, shishou."

"No need," he replied, signalling for the others to move in. "He merely needs to die another nine times. But be prepared if he starts to use some of the more...specialized abilities of the sharingan."

"No need," she mirrored him, casually ignoring the ROOT agent who was sneaking up behind her, kunai ready to plunge into her back. Or, at least he _was_ sneaking until the shadows surrounded him, swallowing him for a moment before dissipating, leaving the shinobi on the ground. Shikaku was elsewhere, busy fighting off ROOT agents as they flooded through the door, so Sakura had to have picked up a Nara somewhere on her way here. "The only Uchiha with the mangekyo alive during the massacre were Itachi, Shisui, Mikoto, and our rogue. None of the ones in his arm are all that special." Her gaze narrowed though, focusing on the councilman, who was looking impatient. "And I have a feeling he's saving Shisui's eye for something more useful than Tsukiyomi."

"How do you know I didn't take Uchiha Mikoto's eyes?" Danzo grunted, dodging a kunai that came flying through their battlefield. "I had access to her records, I would know."

"The Uchiha never liked that their heir's betrothed had awakened her mangekyo, and her husband had not. In order for her not to be set aside in favor of someone more...pliable, Mikoto had to submit to a bastardized version of the Hyuuga's seal, one that would destroy her eyes if anyone attempted to use them, even her. It was a secret hidden in the Uchiha archives, stolen from the Warring Clans Era," Sakura replied with a shrug. "Now _that_ was something the clan was never going to admit to, but they had it pretty well hushed up that she even _had_ the mangekyo to begin with. So, I'm not too worried about you using her mangekyo, since it will cripple the eyes if you even have them."

"You know too much," he hissed, lunging for her, and Orochimaru watched with a smirk as his former teammates rushed to intercept him, knowing that his apprentice would be fully capable of holding her own.

As he had expected, she shunshined out of the way, a mild genjutsu, precisely timed, hiding the fact as she layered herself in her personal genjutsu, relying on the seal inked into her arm, disappearing from sight and invisible to all but Uzumaki Karin or another sensor of her league. Tsunade and Jiraiya crashed into Danzo as his sword cut through the after image Sakura had left, an eerie mimicry of Uchiha Shisui's mastery of the shunshin. Orochimaru expected that she based her use of the shunshin after the Uchiha, meant to unnerve and confuse those who had heard of him.

Danzo's form shimmered, and he disappeared, _another use of izanagi_ , and Orochimaru casually substituted himself with a _very_ ugly vase that had somehow survived thus far, just in time for a hail of shuriken to shatter the vase. Stepping into the shadows, Orochimaru dispatched several ROOT agents as he waited for his apprentice and former teammates to whittle down Danzo's sharingan, smirking as he watched another sharingan close, only for Danzo to shimmer as a senbon was driven deep into his neck.

* * *

As Itachi arrived at the battlefield by the Hokage mountain, following the familiar feel of Nagato and Uzumaki Karin's chakra, he was unsurprised to find the man who had approached him, calling himself Uchiha Madara, looking like a bug slowly being squished under somebody's sandal.

He was surprised to see Hatake in the group of Uzushio shinobi, standing next to Kyo as Nagato worked one of his signature jutsus and Karin moved towards the masked man, but he clamped down on the surprise, stowing it in the same corner where his feelings at seeing Sasuke again after all these years were churning. There was no time to consider any of those feelings, not when there was a dangerous enemy in front of him.

"You're not going to be able to reach him," Nagato was telling Karin, who scowled back at him, hands on her hips. "I can't just take the jutsu off one person."

"We need to see what's under his mask!" the younger girl snapped, eyes flashing. "I mean, we know it's not Madara, so let's establish who's not dead that we think is, and move on with making him dead."

"Bloodthirsty little brat aren't you," the Uchiha wheezed.

"You killed my aunt," Karin hissed, crouching down low so she could look into the masked man's face. "You set the Kyuubi no Kitsune on Konoha. My cousin grew up an orphan, hated and the village's whipping boy, all because of you. So forgive me if I want to see you suffer."

"There's a line," Kyo called chipperly from where he was lounging on his staff on the edge of the seal. "I think Nagato has some things to say first, and then Itachi definitely has things to say, and then it's your turn. But why are we standing around here chatting when we've got him practically at our mercy?"

"I'm hardly one to complain," a voice said, and then Nagato was flying through the air, flipping neatly to land in a crouch, facing the strange... _creature_ that had emerged from the soil. Unfortunately, it was a creature Itachi recognized.

Zetsu wasn't well known as an Akatsuki member, choosing to come and go sporadically. Itachi only knew of his existence from accidentally stumbling in on a conversation between Konan and Zetsu. He had been missing when the Akatsuki disbanded and joined Uzushio, and nobody had thought too much of it.

Now, seeing him rise up in defense of the rogue Uchiha, who was connected with the very roots of Akatsuki, Itachi had to wonder if that wasn't a good thing.

" _Zetsu_ ," Nagato hissed, straightening. "I thought you had wandered off for good."

"Imagine my surprise when you disappeared, even beyond my reach," the sentient plant said as Karin had to jump backwards to avoid being skewered by a mokuton vine, the rogue Uchiha back on his feet. "I should have known that those hateful sealmasters had called you home. Their island was the only place I could never penetrate."

"Stop talking and work on breaking up that seal," the Uchiha ordered gruffly, dodging a sweep of Karin's katana. "They've shut down my movement."

"You're stupid for letting them," Zetsu scoffed, but he moved towards the seal obligingly.

Taking a deep breath, Itachi closed his eyes, feeling the telltale burn and wetness on his face as he opened them again.

He would only have one shot, only one chance to get this right.

Black fire erupted, but Zetsu was a hair too fast, too quick to be caught by the flames of Amaterasu. Looking up to where Itachi was perched on a nearby rooftop, he scowled. "I wondered if they had brought their pet Uchiha," he called, and everyone else turned to look at Itachi as well.

Well, everyone except Karin, whose lunge nearly succeeded in skewering the rogue Uchiha's right shoulder, and Nagato, who was moving towards Zetsu, a determined look on his face. Both of them had likely sensed his approach and knew he had been lurking, waiting for a chance to make himself useful.

With the element of surprise wasted, Itachi shunshined down to join Karin. Nagato, Kakashi, and Kyo would be capable of restraining Zetsu, if not killing him outright. Karin, for all her skills, was still a recently promoted tokujo. The Uchiha had been powerful enough to account for at least half of the clan the night of the massacre, and Itachi doubted it had taken much out of him.

Besides, it was a clan matter, and something he should have done when the man approached him years before.

 *****I'm sorry for the vastly delayed update. Battle scenes and I don't get along, and this chapter fought me more than usual. Sorry also that it's a bit shorter. Hopefully I'll be able to update next Saturday as usual.*****


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter Twenty-Four:**

For a battle that they had planned for, had practiced for, had come up with alternatives for every possible deviated variable, it was over surprisingly quickly.

Leaning against the wall, Sakura inventoried her remaining senbon, frowning as she saw how few she had left. Most of them were embedded in the bodies of the ROOT agents around them, keeping them in too much pain or poison-induced comas so that they couldn't stab her in the back when she wasn't looking.

Across the room, Orochimaru was carefully cleaning Kusanagi, but she could see him keeping a wary eye on Tsunade and Jiraiya, consulting with Shikaku over Danzo's dead body.

Taking down Danzo had been a team effort, with no one person putting in more effort than the others. But the fact remained that the Uzushio shinobi had technically interfered in Konoha's private affairs, especially since this particular incident resulted in the (justifiable) death of a respected elder.

Movement drew her attention, and she saw her shishou moving towards her, practically gliding across a floor covered with bodies and discarded weapons.

"You are uninjured?" he asked, tipping her chin up with a long finger.

"Nothing that wasn't easily fixed," she assured him, attempting to look him over for injuries as well.

He snorted softly, and turned to look at the Konoha delegation, who were now moving closer to them across the wrecked Hokage's office.

"Orochimaru," Tsunade said, eyes hard. "The first thing I signed when I took the hat was an order for your arrest the moment you set foot in Konoha again. That was on top of the kill on sight order."

Palming her senbon, Sakura moved to place herself in front of Orochimaru, but he kept her partially behind him, his tone even as he replied: "And do you feel that you can arrest diplomats from another village who helped you in a time of crisis?"

"I see two Konoha missing-nin," Tsunade's voice was cool. "Two shinobi who willingly and in full possession of their senses abandoned their oaths to the village."

"The treaty that both of our villages agreed to allowed for the forgiveness of missing-nin who swore their allegiance to Uzushio," Sakura hissed from behind Orochimaru's shoulder. "Do you choose to not honor the agreement that would have been signed in two days?"

"He's a Kage-killer," Jiraiya reminded her, and Sakura felt her shishou stiffen. "Orochimaru was my genin teammate, and he has proved himself time and time again to be an unremorseful bastard. Kid, you've been brainwashed."

She could feel, rather than see, Orochimaru's eyes roll as he sighed. But he said nothing as she bristled, snarling at the Toad Sage. "I resent the implication that I am unable to know what is best for me. Tell me, _Jiraiya_ , where was your remorse when you abandoned your teammates in Ame for three orphans? When you abandoned those orphans, despite knowing that one of them had the rinnegan and was likely an Uzumaki? Show me the remorse that you owe your teammates, your first apprentices, your _godson_."

Before he could respond, she was on him again, following the instincts honed by running with her pack. "Naruto didn't know you were his godfather until my grandmother told him. Don't bother trying to reconnect with him now; he's not interested. He's got two cousins, a jounin sensei who actually gave a damn, and a village that isn't going to spit on him because of the burden he bears for them."

Ignoring Jiraiya's hurt look, Sakura rounded on Tsunade next. "And you, you stand there and preach about abandoning our oaths to the village. Tell me, Senju Tsunade, where were you when Konoha shinobi were dying on the frontlines during the Third War? Where were you when your great-niece was growing up, falling in love, and _dying_ to protect her child? Where were you, the last living blood relative of Uzumaki Naruto when the orphanage refused to take care of him and he was sent to live on his own at the age of _five_? I know that it took Jiraiya and Naruto to convince you to return, and only because they were desperate."

"Uzushio would have been my home, if it hadn't been destroyed," she declared proudly adjusting the hitai-ite around her neck. "Had it not been razed, my grandmother would not have borne a daughter who swore an oath to Konoha and then gave birth to me. I am grateful for what Konoha had given me, but I have belonged far more to Uzushio."

"Just so you are aware," Orochimaru said into the silence that fell after her declaration, "Uchiha Itachi and Uzumaki Nagato have joined Uzumaki Karin and Koizumi Kyo in the village. Should you feel that you need to take all six of us into custody, I suggest you remember that Nagato bears the rinnegan, Itachi massacred his clan with the help of a rogue element at age thirteen, Uzumaki survived two world wars, and Karin is an Uzumaki. Not to mention that we currently have treaties with Kumo and Kiri, both of whom would take offense to Konoha holding Uzushio diplomats."

"Kumo and Kiri were not asked to forgive their most infamous missing-nin," Shikaku added dryly. "Excuse us for balking at pardoning murderers."

"Aren't all shinobi murderers?"

Orochimaru cut across Sakura's disgruntled mutter with: "Kumo happened to take in refugees from Uzushio and lost more shinobi to Uzushio than Konoha did. While it did not have to recognise any infamous missing-nin, Kiri had to accept the loss of Hoshigaki Kisame and Hozuki Suigetsu, both members of this generation of the Seven Swordsmen. Both have agreed to train a successor loyal to Kiri, but it will be at least one generation before either of their swords returns to Kiri."

"Did you steal their jinchuuriki too?"

"He _chose_ us," Sakura snapped at Jiraiya, who had the grace to look slightly ashamed of his cheap shot. "Konoha gave him _nothing_ , but Uzushio remembers their debt to the jinchuuriki, and we pay it gladly. Is respect so hard to manage, respect for the lone person who has the power to level any village they want, but _chooses not to_? Naruto is happy in the citadel, and each and every one of us would die before we let you take him. And not just because he's a jinchuuriki, but because he's _Naruto_."

Tsunade heaved a deep sigh, and glanced around the destroyed office. "The elders are going to have a fit," she muttered.

"Considering that one of them was directly involved in treason, you have grounds for removing all three," Shikaku pointed out lightly. "Perhaps it's time for the last pupils of the Nidaime to go gracefully into a well-earned retirement?"

Everyone in the office snorted. Sakura had spent several days locked in the negotiation room with all three of Konoha's elders, and she could have cheerfully throttled them several times. They were hardly likely to take forced retirement graciously.

"We have companions to find," Orochimaru said coolly. "Unless you wish to arrest me?"

"Shikaku and I will accompany you," Jiraiya said quickly. "From the feel of the chakra, the fight at the monument isn't wrapped up yet."

* * *

Karin dropped down to sit cross-legged on the ground, looking at the black flames slowly dying away.

She honestly didn't know what they would have done without Itachi or the Mokuton user that appeared from Konoha's ranks. No seal she had attempted to put on the weird plant creature had held; he slipped through them as if he was Suigetsu, with a body built of water. They were working on solving that problem, but it was impossible to sort it out while trying to negotiate treaties with the surrounding nations, attain jounin rank, and figure out how to stop a madman from plunging the entire world into war.

Now, of course, she wished it had been a bit higher on her priority list, seeing as how it would have been _extremely_ helpful to be able to just seal the stupid sentient plant's chakra and shut him down that way, just as how the modified binding seal had nullified the space-time ninjutsu that the Uchiha had been fond of using.

At least Itachi and the Mokuton user had been able to contain the plant, leaving herself, Nagato and Kyo to wear out the had finally been subdued, thanks to generous use of her cousin's rinnegan abilities and the occasional helpful distraction from the Copy Nin. Most of the time though, the Konoha shinobi was a pain in the neck, used to jumping in and expecting the rest of them to fall in line with whatever he was thinking, never stopping to think that perhaps they had a fairly feasible plan.

He was standing and talking with Nagato, and every so often both of them would glance over at the Uchiha, who was sprawled out on the only undamaged bit of ground, paralysis seal keeping him there until someone could arrive with chakra sealing restraints. They'd already bound most of his chakra, but the Uchiha was almost as deadly without it, perfectly capable of using his taijutsu to keep him at bay. It was only because Karin and Hatake had distracted him that Kyo had gotten close enough to place the seal in the first place.

Bored, already feeling her chakra replenishing, she got to her feet, ready to jump back at the first sign of anything amiss. Itachi had assured them that the plant creature was on its way to roasting in hell, thanks to the sharingan's flames, but Karin wasn't willing to take chances. Carefully she walked towards the downed Uchiha, squatting next to him and reaching for his mask as a familiar chakra signature shunshined over to her.

Sakura's shoulder bumped hers as her partner squatted in the tiny amount of space left before the nearest crater. "I see you made it," the other girl said, scrutinizing the man stretched out in front of him. "The seal worked?"

" _Obviously_ ," Karin drawled, feeling for whatever was holding the mask in place. "Your old sensei is an idiot."

"You think just about everyone is an idiot," Sakura reminded her. "No major issues? When we finished up, it felt like your fight was still going."

"Probably your sensei's weird sharingan fire." Locating the release, Karin clicked it free. "Some weird plant gatecrashed. It worked in our favor, sort of, because he started bitching at our friend here, who got distracted by bitching back, and with both of them bitching at each other we didn't have to work as hard." It wasn't a cakewalk, by any means, but Karin had faced the Uchiha when he was focused, knowing that this man had been strong enough to fight the Yellow Flash to a standstill, and he was the worst opponent she could imagine.

As she lifted the mask away, she whistled. "Dude, your medic needs to go back to training, because this is the shittiest patch job I've ever seen." Ridged scars covered half of his face, running in nearly concentric circles with his dormant sharingan eye at the center.

Turning slightly, she glanced at Sakura, who had an odd look on her face. "Shishou, sensei?" she called, just loud enough for the snake sannin and Itachi to hear from where they had joined Hatake and Nagato. "Come take a look at this?"

Both shinobi shunshined over, the snake sannin raising his eyebrow as he saw the uncovered face of the Uchiha who had plagued them. Itachi's face was still, giving away nothing, but Karin felt his chakra twitch in agitation.

"Uchiha Obito, back from the dead," Orochimaru hummed lightly, bending down to touch the ridged scars. "Clumsy, but effective. I suppose that accounts for how you were able to use Mokuton?"

"That's him," Itachi murmured. "The same man who came to me and helped with the massacre. I never saw his face, but the hair is right."

Nagato and Hatake had joined them, with the Toad Sage and the Nara head hot on their heels. Karin had been vaguely aware of their arrival, but more interested in the man in front of her who had caused so much heartbreak. Curious, she looked up to see their reactions to the unmasked man, and was surprised to see that both Hatake and Jiraiya looked as if an errant futon jutsu would knock them over.

"I assume Madara somehow had access to Hashirama cells, just as I did," Orochimaru was informing the Nara, who seemed to be the only one listening from the Konoha contingent. "However, instead of using them to integrate directly with the full body, they've been used to recreate what was damaged. It's crudely stabilized, but effective. I doubt I could have done much better without access to Uchiha genomic samples."

"Zetsu appears to have been behind this," Nagato added, gesturing to their surroundings. "Based on the argument the two had, it seems as if the Uchiha was kidnapped and molded to Madara's will, intended to be the madman's successor. Their plan was supposed to result in a perfect world without lies, and it somehow involved collecting the biju. I assume your interrogators will be able to ferret out the truth."

"What about his space-time ninjutsu?" Jiraiya asked, eyeing the seals scrawled into the earth around them, still holding firm despite the destruction. "Can we turn that into something more portable so he won't be able to use it?"

At Nagato's nod, Karin placed one hand on the Uchiha's sternum and one hand on the ground, but before she started the transfer, she felt something odd in the Uchiha's chakra system. Only a whisper, but enough.

"Sakura, check him for anything out of the ordinary?"

Frowning, Sakura placed one hand on the man's chest and the other on his forehead, the cool green of healing chakra glowing around them. After a minute, she moved both hands down to his chest, and then frowned. "There's some sort of seal on his heart. It's dormant, but...odd. I can't figure out the trigger."

"Can you remove it?" As the Nara head asked the question, Orochimaru knelt to rest his hand over Sakura's, his own chakra threading into the Uchiha's system momentarily before withdrawing.

"I wouldn't recommend it," he said, rising smoothly. "While I'm unaware of the other components, it prevents him from committing suicide. Uzumaki should be capable of modifying it with Shiroyami's assistance, removing everything else but that component. Your interrogators should find that useful."

"Perhaps Uzushio might consider teaching that seal in the future," the Nara said, and Sakura reached for Karin's hand, drawing the redhead into her jutsu.

With Sakura's help, it was easy to see the seal, its spiral pattern reminiscent of Nagato's rinnegan, and even easier to break it down into the parts. Karin recognized the part preventing suicide easily enough, now that she knew what it was, and vaguely got a sense that it was activated by a phrase, though what that phrase was escaped her. Taking a moment to memorize it, she gently began modifying it, nullifying everything that she didn't fully understand,

By the time she had finished, the Yamanaka heiress had arrived, a set of restraints in her hand as she followed a man Karin vaguely recognized as the proctor from Konoha's chuunin exams. A quick burst of chakra, and all of the seals binding the man were transferred to his body, allowing them to carry him away.

The Toad Sage cleared his throat, and announced: "Hatake, Yamato, the Hokage will want to debrief you. Orochimaru, you and your team should consider yourself confined to your lodgings, mainly so as not to cause a stir until we can let the rest of Konoha know what transpired here today. Someone will bring you food. Do any of you need a medic?"

"We have our own," Orochimaru indicated Sakura with a wave of his hand. "You know where to find us if you need us."

With that, he glided across the ruined stretch of land, Sakura rising and hurrying to take her place at his shoulder. Nagato and Itachi followed, and Karin found Kyo offering her a hand, which she took gladly. Her chakra reserves, larger than most due to her Uzumaki heritage, were starting to run low, and she wanted nothing more than food and a shower before collapsing into bed.

* * *

A knock at the door, and Sakura called: "Enter!", not even bothering to look up from her jutsu scroll. It had been a reward from her shishou, retrieved from one of his caches around Konoha when their guards hadn't been looking before their confinement to their rooms.

He was penning a report to Konan now, with Nagato and Itachi's help. The three of them were cloistered in the room Orochimaru and Kyo shared, the other man practicing kenjutsu with Karin in the room Nagato and Itachi were sharing since it was the only room with enough space once the beds were shoved against the walls.

Both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, a familiar head of blonde hair poked through the doorway as Sakura reached the end of one of the descriptions and looked up from the scroll. Ino hovered awkwardly just inside the doorway until Sakura sat up, rolled up the scroll, and gestured towards the couch across from her. "You might as well sit down and spit it out."

Gaping, Ino did as she was invited, but the stunned silence didn't last long. "You grew a backbone!"

Shrugging, Sakura reached for the cup of tea sitting on the table next to her, grimacing at the slight bitterness that spoke of being left too long to steep. "When there's nothing of your home but rubble, you grow up fast. I always had a backbone, it just needed to remember that it was built from stone that even the sea cannot wear down." It was a common phrase used in Uzushio, especially when referring to the stubbornness of the Uzumaki clan in particular. Sakura liked the sound of it, liked what it meant for her. They had said it of her as well, when she returned from Kumo, unbent and unbroken.

"Konoha is your home," Ino ventured, fists balling in her lap. "Or, at least it was. Should have been."

With a sigh, Sakura looked her former friend directly in the eye. "Konoha raised me, and for that I'll be forever grateful. But my heart and soul have always belonged to Uzushio, and when she called I chose to answer. I left because I would always be torn between Uzushio and Konoha, and the ache of living without Konoha is lesser than the ache of never knowing Uzushio. There was nothing anyone could have done to make me stay, although if circumstances had allowed for it, I would have done things right. Said my goodbyes."

Ino's lip wobbled slightly before she caught it. "Not Sasuke?" she whispered. "Not your parents?"

 _Not me_ , Sakura heard underneath, and she closed her eyes and bowed her head. It was...incomprehensible to other shinobi how her loyalty for a place she had never seen had been stronger than her oath to her village. Only shinobi who had lived with the constant pull of the citadel, the nightly dreams of the sea...only when you had lived the longing could you hope to understand the impossibility of the choice she had been faced with.

"Sasuke was in the middle of defecting," she reminded Ino, her voice harsh for a moment when she spoke of her former friend, but then it gentled. "It...hurt, to leave my parents, but I had my grandmother. You know how she ended up stepping in half the time when they were out on missions. When she offered me a chance to go to the place that I had been dreaming of my whole life without even knowing where it was...I couldn't refuse. In Uzushio I found a sensei that valued me, friends and companions that bled and sweated and cried with me, and a shishou who seems constantly trying to make me _better_."

The blonde still didn't look as if she understood, but she drew herself up, almost visibly changing gears. "Do you want all the gossip you missed out on since you left?"

Smiling, Sakura settled back into the couch, which still felt like a luxury despite how long they'd been in Konoha. "Sure."

"So, he keeps downplaying it, but Shika's definitely got a thing for that Suna kunoichi, you know, the Yondaime Kazekage's daughter? With the fan?"

* * *

Karin was sharpening her katana when the chakra signature lurking outside the window made its move.

Surprised it had only taken him three hours to make his move, she let the chakra on the superficial traps they had placed around the window fade, assuring him safe entrance, since he didn't seem interested in entering through the door like a normal human being.

As he slipped through the window, she set aside her katana and reached for one of the seal tags she had been working on earlier. Gesturing towards Sakura, who had fallen asleep on the couch, jutsu scroll open in her lap, she motioned for silence as she slapped the tag down on the floor, creating a bubble of silence between her and the Konoha shinobi.

"What do you want Hatake?" she asked, reaching for her katana again.

"She's really the same Sakura who was on Team 7?" the Copy-Nin asked, staring at Sakura. "Jiraiya wasn't just making it up?"

"I think the Toad Sannin is a lot of things, few of them good, but he's not likely to lie about things he's not emotionally invested in."

Hatake sat down heavily in the armchair, eyes fixed on Sakura. "I always thought she was going to drop out once she made chuunin, if she got that far."

"Well, you thought wrong," Karin bit out, setting the katana aside before she could gut the man. She had spent too many nights and days next to Sakura as the girl second-guessed herself; her progress after being assigned to Itachi's genin team and subsequent seeking out of Kabuto was due to sheer spite. Without that motivating her, Karin wondered if her best friend would have reached out to Kabuto or Orochimaru at all. "She just needed the right teacher."

"And Orochimaru was the right teacher?" The skepticism was clear in his voice, as clear as the eyebrow he raised at Karin, turning away from Sakura for the first time. "I find that hard to believe."

"No, actually the right teacher was Uchiha Itachi." Karin shrugged. "Spite is an excellent motivator, and he was cognizant enough to realize that with minimal guidance once she apprenticed herself under Kabuto, she would become fucking deadly. Having her apprentice under Orochimaru just sealed the deal."

The eyebrow stayed raised.

Clamping down on her temper, the way she had borne down on the rogue Uchiha with her chakra chains once the intangibility issue had been dealt with, Karin gritted out: "She's likely to be the first ANBU commander of Uzushio, if they establish the position in her lifetime. Out of our entire genin class, she's the deadliest. Akasuna no Sasori taught her poisons, Kabuto medical ninjutsu that both hurts and heals. Orochimaru and Uchiha are teaching her everything she can learn, and what they can't teach her she's teaching herself. Right now she's the only one on the planet that can withstand and break a tsukiyomi cast by the mangekyo sharingan."

"That's not fiction," Karin hissed, balling her fists in her lap, wishing she could punch the politely incredulous look off his face. "She earned that through blood, sweat, and tears. The Godaime Mizukage and her advisors refer to her as _the Uchiha who wasn't_ , and I think that name's spread to Kumo right now. Not that they didn't need more reasons to know about her."

This was a story that too many people knew to keep it secret, unlike the way they had taken down Yagura. Kumo's interrogators were chatty, and their jounin even worse, and based on what Naruto had said when he returned, their friend was well on their way to earning her place in the bingo books. Seeing as how she had the Copy Nin's attention, Karin capitalized on it.

"Her genin team was on a mission when they bumped into Kumo's ANBU. Uchiha told them to run, but Sakura refused to go. They caught them both, and took them to be interrogated. Except Uchiha had a seal that prevented him from saying anything. Sakura didn't. They had her for just about a month. Uchiha was forced to use tsukiyomi daily for three weeks."

"I'm certain he went easy on her," Hatake scoffed quietly. "The caster has control over the world inside tsukiyomi."

"He showed her the greatest goddamn tragedy of this decade," Karin spat. She knew that what had truly happened to the Uchiha clan would be hard to contain once Sasuke had been interrogated, and too many people were learning about it. Hatake was likely high enough in Konoha's ranks to hear about it. "Between that and the standard torture, how much do you think she gave up?"

"As a genin? Everything."

"Wrong," Karin laughed, leaning back in her chair. "They didn't even know her name. Kept calling her 'kunoichi-chan'. The only things they knew about her were that she was travelling with Itachi and two others, and that she was carrying an Uzushio hitai-ite."

"Don't try to tell me that she escaped," Hatake crinkled his visible eye. "This is already unbelievable, but that would make it ridiculous."

"Fine, I won't." With a shrug, Karin leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees as she felt her grin turn vicious. "Kumo found Orochimaru, Akasuna no Sasori, Hoshigaki Kisame, and Kabuto on their doorstep, threatening to bring the goddamn village down around their ears if they wouldn't let them go. In the process, they negotiated a trade treaty with Uzushio and we got them back."

"Kumo traded a doujutsu user nobody would miss for a trade treaty with a village that was a pile of rubble for all they knew?"

"Wrong again," Karin sing-songed. "They traded the treaty for having a village that _wasn't_ a pile of rubble. " Seeing that he wasn't understanding, she spelled it out for him. "Two of the most notorious missing-nin of this age and one of those missing-nin's former apprentices threatened to reduce Kumo to rubble if they didn't get _Sakura_ back alive and in one piece. Orochimaru's ninjutsu was still sealed then, and all four of them knew that even if they succeeded Uzushio might not take them back. But she was worth it to them."

Hatake didn't even have the grace to look ashamed, instead landing somewhere between mildly confused and politely accepting.

Karin gritted her teeth and pointed to the window. "Out. Now. Before I do something I'm going to regret when I have to fill out the paperwork."

* * *

As Hatake's chakra signature moved off into the distance, Karin let the privacy bubble around her drop. "You can stop faking it," she murmured, sheathing her katana and gathering up the whetstone. "I knew you were awake when he entered."

Sakura sat up. "So, the privacy shield was just for show?"

"It took him three hours to decide to show his stupid masked face," Karin grumbled, heading for the room they shared. "I was going to give him at least a piece of the lecture I've been drafting ever since I heard his stupid fucking name."

"He's really not as bad as you think he is," Sakura protested as she followed. "I mean, Sasuke was a brat, and Naruto was starved for attention, and I was a fangirl. We were an awful team to try and train."

"Whoever gave him a genin team was stupid," the redhead declared stoutly. "And they're even more stupid for giving him such an emotionally fraught team. Like, _really_. So, the Uchiha needed to be with him because of the sharingan, but you should never have been placed with him. If your behavior was how you described it, _everyone_ should have known. And putting two known rivals on a team is shitty practice anyway, no matter how the grades line up. Naruto should have gone to someone else, or the Uchiha should have, and you shouldn't have been with the Uchiha."

 _None of it was your fault_ , Sakura heard Karin telling her, the way the redhead had told her as they talked one night around the fire. _I've only known you a short while and you're more than a stupid fangirl. You are worth so much more than the pittance Konoha wanted to give you._

Letting out a huff, Karin moved from where she had leaned her katana against the nightstand, ready if she needed it, and crossed the room to stand in front of Sakura, hand curling gently around the nape of her neck, mindful of the poisoned senbon holding her hair up in a bun. Carefully, she drew Sakura forward so that their foreheads touched.

It was a gesture the redhead had used since Sakura had returned from Kumo, during the first nights in their shared apartment when she woke screaming from nightmares, when she had to talk Sakura down of the proverbial ledge the other girl had talked herself up onto, when she was ready to throw in the towel and admit defeat. As she had the first time, and all subsequent times, Sakura sagged into the grip, letting her breath leave her as the tenseness that she hadn't realized was present in her body released.

" _You are worth so much more than them and what they think of you_ ," Karin murmured. " _And they'll never understand how much of a treasure they lost because they couldn't see what you could be._ "


	25. Chapter 25

*****IMPORTANT! Please be aware that there are parts in the first half of this chapter that are most likely considered NSFW. I attempt to refrain from graphic descriptions, but feel free to skim if you're not comfortable.*****

 **Chapter Twenty-Five:**

Konoha was... _loud_.

Karin had noticed it before the thwarted invasion, but they had kept to their rooms, the negotiating rooms, and wherever their guides wished to show them. Never had they ended up in a bar, surrounded by Sakura's former classmates, most of them the same clan heirs that had often attended the negotiations.

There was an assortment of bottles of alcohol on the table, with empty shot glasses scattered in front of the various occupants. Their table was close to the noisiest in the main room, and Karin momentarily wished that she was sitting over at the table shared by Nagato and Orochimaru, Itachi having chosen to remain in their rooms, since most of the Konoha shinobi were uneasy with him nearby.

And then Kiba was forced to strip off his shirt, and Karin was too busy laughing with the rest of the Konoha shinobi at her table.

Yamanaka was crowing with laughter as she accepted the shirt the Inuzuka passed her. "I told you you shouldn't have bet against her," his sister wheezed as she clutched her sides. "She'd actually do it."

"How was I supposed to know that she'd take off her underwear without even getting up from the table?" Kiba complained, pouting as Yamanaka waved the shirt like a victory banner. "I thought girls were sensitive about that short of shit?"

"Maybe try that one on someone who isn't wearing a miniskirt," the Nara slouched in the corner said dryly. "And you should know by now that Ino has no shame."

"I t-think it's your turn, Kiba-kun?" the Hyuuga heiress said, looking as red as a tomato and trying to look anywhere but her teammate's chest, now covered only in fine fishnet mail, or in the general direction of Ino, who had waved her own lost garment at the table before tucking it into her pocket. "Who are you going to ask?"

"Sakura!" he crowed, and Karin watched her friend and partner roll her eyes. "Truth or dare?"

"Hmmm," Sakura tapped her finger slowly against the table. " _Dare_."

"Go dance with Shiranui," Kiba snapped after a moment of contemplation. "And not just bob your head and shit like that. I mean vertical-sex dancing."

Ino started protesting on Sakura's behalf, as Hana thumped her brother's shoulder so hard that his forehead cracked against the table, narrowly missing the empty shot glass in front of him. Akimichi looked mildly concerned, as did the Hyuuga, but anything they were trying to say was drowned out by the loud declarations of the idiot shouting about a maiden's honor while his teammate, another Hyuuga, tried to force him to sit down.

Karin simply snorted, watching Sakura wait for a long moment before reaching for her choko and taking a sip of the sake she had been drinking for most of the night. As she swallowed, the rest of the table settled into a shocked, watchful quiet as she rose to her feet and sashayed towards where the tokujo who had escorted them into Konoha upon their arrival lounged against the bar with a few others.

Sakura slid easily into the group, chatting with one shinobi, brushing her arm against the others, slowly insinuating herself until she was next to the tokujo that was her target, allowing herself to stumble into his chest as the group shifted around him. Her recovery was a little slower than necessary, her touches lingering and suggestive, and his previous grin deepened.

Slowly, tantalizingly slowly, the pair flirted their way out onto the dance floor, a tiny patch of cleared floor already occupied by a number of gyrating couples. But there was something almost _indecent_ about the way Sakura pressed herself to the tokujo's front, hands toying with the hair that hung below the bandanna. The way the other couple's groped each other looked like adolescent pawings compared the the relatively innocent placement of Shiranui's hands on her hips, just above the swell of her ass as he pulled her against him, so snug a senbon couldn't fit between them.

Karin watched the subtle shift of Sakura's hips, saw the tokujo's hands grip a little tighter before being carefully relaxed, and then she saw Sakura's back arch as Shiranui's smirk turned smug as his hips rolled against hers before spinning her around so that her back was pressed against her front. Positioned this way, their hips moved in unison, a subtle undulation that traveled all the way from their toes to Sakura's arms as she leaned back into her partner and lifted her arms to twine them around his neck. His hands slid lightly down her front, skimming the undersides of her breasts and coming to rest again on her hips as they rolled again, and Karin was amazed that the bar didn't ignite with the amount of heat given off by the pair. She herself was feeling the effects, and it didn't seem like she was alone in that.

Glazed eyes and dilated pupils seemed to be the shared symptom at the table, when she spared a quick glance. Yamanaka was fanning herself, using Kiba's shirt to dab discreetly at her face, and the Hyuuga heiress seemed as if she was ready to self-combust.

As the song ended, the tokujo's head dipped down to whisper something in Sakura's ear, and Karin caught the faint smirk as Sakura separated them, but blatantly placed her hand on Shiranui's ass as his snaked around her waist. The pair left the bar without saying a single word, but each and every witness to the spectacle knew _exactly_ where the pair would be heading.

A flicker of movement caught Karin's eye, and she saw Orochimaru raising an eyebrow at her as he tipped his head at the door. Rolling her eyes, she shrugged. Both of them were familiar with Sakura's habits, and the simple motions Karin had made were enough to assure the snake sannin that Sakura was just looking for some fun, not getting herself into anything more complicated.

Wolf-whistles and applause broke out as the door slammed shut behind the pair, and Karin found herself the center of attention as she turned back to the table of Konoha chuunin.

" _Holy shit_ ," Ino breathed, eyes glued to the door. "That's the same Sakura I used to have to protect from bullies? I mean, I know Shiranui will sleep with pretty much anything on legs that shows an interest, but _damn_. When did Sakura get so... _bold_?"

"How come she picked _him_?" Kiba pouted, and Karin was glad to see his sister thump him again.

"She obviously didn't want a puppy, you idiot," Hana sneered. "Genma's a good lay, anyone with eyes can see that. Better than you anyway."

"She obviously picked him for a reason," the Aburame, who had thus far been sitting quietly in the corner by the Nara, commented. "Why? Because you dared her to dance with him."

"You should probably just stop while you're ahead," the Nara pointed out as Kiba opened his mouth to answer back. "Your record tonight has more losses than wins since you keep underestimating the women."

"And you should put your shirt back on," the male Hyuuga at the table said frostily, ignoring the sobbing mass of his teammate next to him. "Nobody wants to see you."

Kiba started bickering with him, with the Hyuuga heiress attempting to intervene, but Karin was distracted by Yamanaka leaning closer. "So, Sakura's got... _experience_?"

"I'm pretty certain everyone older than genin has experience in Uzushio," the redhead replied dryly, reaching for Sakura's abandoned choko and sipping the sake her friend had left behind. "Obviously I can't speak for the other jounin, but I know...or I'm mostly certain," she amended "that most of the chuunin and genin are no longer virgins."

"They send you all on," Ino paused, looked around to make sure most of the table was occupied watching Kiba and the frosty Hyuuga posture and snap, " _seduction missions_?"

Snorting, Karin savored another sip of sake, letting the flavor sit on her tongue before swallowing. They rarely had access to alcohol, but Mei had made sure that part of their lessons on being a proper kunoichi focused on alcohol; how to keep one's head, how to appreciate it...and Orochimaru had capped it off with a useful detox jutsu that was both hangover remedy and prevention of getting too sloshed to remember their purpose. Mei's stash of alcohol had been good, but it had nothing on whatever this was.

The blonde prodded Karin with her foot, and the redhead purposefully took another sip before answering: " _No_. We just decided to take control of our own sexualties before they could be used against us." As she saw the thoughts spinning in Ino's head, Karin sighed. "Stop right there. What would you do if you were captured on a mission and there were threats of rape? It's an easy way to break shinobi and kunoichi alike. So we just decided to make sure that we could separate the act of sex from the intimacy of it. And it's fun."

Ino still looked confused, and Karin didn't feel like trying to explain it better. She didn't want to tell this girl that she had seen Sakura wake up screaming because she had a nightmare that convinced her that she was back in Kumo and that she was going to be raped. Had seen Sakura come into the apartment, pale and shaking, because all day she had been around men and some part of her was still afraid that she would be forced into being a broodmare.

Karin had kissed Sakura, one of those nights. Had smashed their lips together to show her panicking roommate that it was just an act. That it was a moment of physical contact between people that only meant as much as you let it. Together, with fumbling hands and nervous laughter, they had touched and been touched, had learned what felt good, what made each other gasp...it hadn't changed anything for them. They weren't in love, they weren't even in lust. But Sakura's nightmares had abated, and their experimenting had opened new doors.

Their experimenting had spread to most of the other genin as well, as each of them tested their newly discovered sexuality. Sakura spent several evenings teaching the other kunoichi the simple jutsu that would prevent pregnancy until it was undone, to make sure no accidents happened, and all of them had been checked when the hospital had opened for any diseases they might have contracted. It wasn't the orgy that Ino and everyone else would think of, but it was quiet experimenting, figuring out how to disconnect themselves from the emotion of the acts, making them better shinobi in Karin's opinion, better able to withstand torture through sexual assault and to keep things professional on seduction missions.

If Sakura hadn't walked out with Genma, Karin might have tried her hand. The gossip in Konoha was that the man was considerate, with no expectations. Most likely different than her fellow genin and chuunin, and the few Mist shinobi that she had seduced, mostly on dares or assignments from Mei and Orochimaru, both of whom having been delighted that their prodigies were taking control of their sexual experience and being safe about it.

Unfortunately, given the way most of her tablemates were acting, she was going to have to try harder if she was interested in picking up any new experience outside of Uzushio. Even Ino, for all her boldness, was still astonishingly naive.

* * *

Genma was sitting up and leaning against the wall when Sakura walked back into the room, toweling her hair dry. Draping the towel over the back of the chair in the corner, Sakura moved to sit on the bed, shuffling so their knees touched as they sat cross-legged on the bed.

Reaching out, he trailed a finger softly down the seals tattooed on her arm. "Tell me about the citadel?" he asked softly, looking up into her face. His finger came back up, following the lines inked into her arm. It was almost ticklish, but his touch was just a hair too solid to make her flinch.

"It's all stone right now," Sakura replied, tracing light patterns on his thighs, half thought of seals that she was working on with Karin. "We're still rebuilding, so that's where most of the effort is being made. But the ones who survived, they say that we had gardens and fountains, and roofs that were gold and red instead of flat grey state. The walls that protect us are white, like most of our buildings, but they're not stuccoed that color like the buildings are. It's built in four levels, with only one main gate."

"My mother's clan was from Uzushio," Genma replies, eyes distant as he looks out the window, looks out over Konoha's rooftops to the east and south, where Sakura unerringly knows Uzushio lies. "I always had these dreams, and when I asked her about them she told me that they would never come true. So I made my home in Konoha, and I won't leave it." His hand moved to her shoulder, pulling her closer so he could reach the tattooed spiral on the back of her left shoulder. Gently, he swept her still-damp hair out of the way, letting it fall over her right shoulder. She leaned forward, allowing him access to the only tattoo that didn't function as a seal, enjoying the soft caresses.

Saskura wondered how many people were out there that had dreamed but stayed. Dreamed and heard the call, but held duty and their oaths to their villages in higher regard than the citadel that sang in their dreams. "Someday you should visit us."

He laughed, leaning back and raking a hand through his hair. "My duty is to Konoha. I'm...if I see Uzushio, see the citadel the way it called to me that night, I'm not completely confident that I could walk away. The lure of a home like that...it's powerful. When I was younger, there were probably times where I would have killed for that. But my life is here, my work is here."

She could hear it in his voice, how much he needed to explain himself, how much he wanted someone to understand how it felt to live your life torn between two homes. "I chose Uzushio because when she called, I had few ties to bind me to Konoha. Only three genin and one inactive kunoichi came from Konoha to Uzushio, and I think that's because Konoha...it was almost Uzushio, in some ways. Enough to make it worth staying for most."

With a nod, he tipped forward slightly, and Sakura pulled him down, letting his head rest on her shoulder. They sat there quietly for a moment, and then she felt Genma grin against her neck, and there was no further warning before he blew a raspberry there.

Squirming away from his fingers as they sought out her ticklish spots, Sakura found herself in his lap, breath hitching as they tumbled together, skin against skin. As he reached to tickle her sides again, they overbalanced, and she toppled back onto the sheets, still in disarray from their activities earlier. Genma readily went with her, impossible not to entwined as they were, and he hovered above her, backlit by the moonlight. She reached up to run a hand through his hair, marvelling once more in how soft it was, despite being tied back under his bandanna most of the time.

"My partner Raidou was there when you confronted Uchiha the younger," he said thoughtfully, sitting back on his heels. "He said the way you came through the steam, it was like seeing a goddess approach. Seeing you like this, I can't help but agree."

Sakura scoffed lightly. "Smooth. You've already got me in your bed; there's no need for further flattery. Was Raidou one of the shinobi who had attempted to stop Sasuke? Because all of them were suffering some pretty nasty burns. I'm not surprised he was seeing illusions."

With a smirk, Genma bent down over her once again, lips brushing the side of her neck as he murmured: "You're like a goddess, come up from the sea." Unconsciously, unable to help herself, Sakura arched into his kiss, and he chuckled as he stroked her leg from foot to hip. "Beautiful and dangerous, something that men long for but will swallow them whole if they aren't wary."

His lips were like fire against her skin, stirring up the embers of their earlier lust. Sucking in air, Sakura managed to ask: "If I'm a goddess of the sea, what are you?"

"A humble worshipper," Genma breathed, looking up at her from where he had positioned himself between her legs. "One who knows that he has one night to worship the goddess who allowed him into her bed, and who intends to make the most of it." His eyes were like molten bronze as he pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh, making her gasp at the sensation. "A worshipper who is wholly willing to be completely submerged in the sea."

She couldn't help but laugh, and to her relief he laughed with her. "That was terrible," she informed him with a grin.

"Oh?" he replied mildly, and then she was too distracted by what his fingers were doing to pick on him for his terrible allusion. She would have to shower again in the morning, but at this point, she was beyond caring about anything but the brunette doing wonderful things to her.

* * *

His apprentice was wound tighter than he had ever seen her, even in the early days of her return from Kumo, and he had half a mind to send her back to Shiranui, since she had come home in a state of relaxation that he had been thoroughly impressed by after disappearing with him two days ago. As they walked through the streets, heading for the weapons shop that Orochimaru knew was the best place for them to replace the weapons used in Uchiha Obito's final attempt at stirring up trouble in between the five great villages, she was obviously on edge, eyes tracking every chakra signature, assessing, and dismissing warily. As they approached a familiar chakra signature, Orochimaru sighed slightly and folded his hands inside the sleeves of his robes. "Come out Anko."

The sannin was grateful that his former apprentice only stirred up a cloud of dust when she landed. She had always been one for dramatics, and at one point her entry accent of choice had been explosive tags. Despite her roiling chakra, and the scowl on her face, she was acting relatively tame.

Civilians and shinobi alike had scattered the moment Anko had touched down; apparently her reputation was just as formidable as the rumors made it. Seeing her at the chuunin exams had been both a pleasure and a pain. She had become so much since he had left her behind, had developed a bloodthirstiness that was absolutely admirable in the same way that it was unnerving. But she had still been reckless and careless with her own life, willing to blow them both up if it meant defeating him.

Now she stood in the middle of the street, arms crossed over her chest as her trenchcoat flared around her, scowl fully affixed on her face.

Sakura's hand was up her sleeve, and he knew that she would go with the same senbon that she had used against the ROOT agents. Subtly, he tapped her elbow, obscuring the movement in the shifting of his sleeves. With only a moment of hesitation, she backed down, folding her own hands in her sleeves as she watched Anko warily.

"Say your piece," he said after Anok stood and stared at them for a long moment. "We have errands to run."

"You took another apprentice," she hissed.

"She came to me," he agreed. "I thought it would prove...interesting."

She was his first apprentice who had come to him, had sought him out and asked for him to teach her. Kabuto, he had groomed, and Anko had been foisted on him by Sarutobi, along with two other genin that had failed out during the chuunin exams, in an attempt to better his appearance within the village.

"But you didn't allow her to sign the snake summoning contract?

"You had already signed it." Orochimaru hadn't wanted to shape Sakura into his own image, the way he had shaped Anko. She wasn't suited for his uncaring practicality, despite her own ruthless streak. No, she didn't, _couldn't_ see the world in terms of benefit and expense, weighing each life based on a slim criteria. Sakura could be as deadly and ruthless as him, but only when protecting, only when defending, and only when there was no other option. "I did not wish to interfere with your summons."

Anko had an odd look on her face, a strange mixture of surprised pleasure and irritation. But she masked it quickly, slipping into smug aloofness that Orochimaru recognized as her public mask. "I heard you managed to hold your own against a bunch of ROOT brats." Anko addressed Sakura, who bristled at first, and then lapsed back into wary watchfulness. "Aren't you that pinky who Hatake taught?"

"I think you mean _aren't you that genin that Hatake neglected_ ," Sakura corrected, polite and unassuming, a perfect lady, just as he and Mei had taught her. With a flick of her wrist, her fan was in her hand, open, and shielding part of her face. From his position behind her, he couldn't see exactly what was visible, but, having seen her use this move on a handful of Mist chuunin, he had a feeling that only her eyes were visible. "You proctored the second stage of the last chuunin exams held in Konoha."

Laughing, Anko shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat. "You've got spunk kid," she agreed with a chuckle. "Want to give me a try?"

"I'm afraid we have errands to finish," Orochimaru interceded smoothly. "Our headwoman is supposed to arrive this afternoon and we aren't sure of how much longer we'll be in Konoha."

"You can always ask for me at T&I," Anko informed them smugly. "They'll know where to find me if you're interested in a spar."

With another rush of dust, she was gone, flickered away in a shunshin, and shinobi slid easily back into the street, civilians just a beat behind them. But Sakura was still just as wound as she had been when Anko had been observing them, and the snake sannin had half a mind to dump her in a training ground and send a summons for Anko.

She didn't relax during their shopping, and Uzumaki sent _him_ an accusing look when they returned to their hotel rooms, as if he had been responsible for his apprentice's highly wound state. Taking a deep breath, he laid out their supplies on the table and retreated to his room to change before meeting the Uzushio delegation come to officially sign the treaty. Today had already been more emotional than he felt like dealing with, and the explosion of sentiment that was sure to occur when the Uzushio shinobi arrived was likely to be even more taxing. Uzumaki could care for his apprentice; he had his own intrusive memories brought on by extended exposure to Konoha.

* * *

It seemed as if half of Konoha had found errands to run by the gate.

Sakura scowled as another pair of gossiping chuunin made a flimsily veiled pass through the area, obviously lurking for a chance to see the delegation sent for the formal signing of the treaty with Uzushio. It was a good faith show on Uzushio's part, sending their headwoman to Konoha, one that was needed after the dubiously legal actions Sakura and the rest of her squad had participated in while Konoha was under attack.

Karin leaned her shoulder into Sakura's in a subtle shift of weight, and Sakura closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, centering herself. She needed to be water, smooth and flexible, reflecting only serenity. There was no place for her troubled emotions in the events of the day.

Her shishou was...mildly concerned, but too busy dealing with his own emotional stability. Konoha stirred bad memories, and the borderline hostile glances that he was treated to, now that his identity was unmasked, didn't help. She wasn't certain, but Sakura suspected that his run in with his first apprentice had jarred him.

On her other side, Itachi's face was completely blank, giving no indication that he noticed the way Konoha shinobi _crossed the fucking street_ to get away from him. About the only way he could get less threatening was if he tied his limbs together and wore a blindfold, but Sakura suspected that wouldn't be enough. She was worried about him; he had been to see Sasuke daily since he had arrived and the Hokage had granted her permission. At first it was just short, five minute visits through one-way glass, but they had started letting them talk with cell bars between them. Sasuke's sharingan was still disabled, and he was being pumped full of chakra suppressants, bound with chakra inhibiting cuffs...the whole nine yards. Ino had let slip one of the nights they had been dragged out to a bar that it was highly likely that the Hokage took restoring the Uchiha clan into her own hands, negating the need for Sasuke's willing cooperation.

Sakura suspected that Itachi, in his final act as acting head of the Uchiha clan before he had officially abdicated in favor of whomever the Hokage placed as regent, had given his permission. There had been surprisingly little fuss about the only currently sane Uchiha spending the rest of his days in Uzushio, potentially causing the sharingan to be lost, but an agreement like that would have satisfied Konoha's desire for the doujutsu.

About the only person not currently in the midst of emotional turmoil was Kyo, who seemed to have taken it upon himself to be head of morale, making sure that they ate, trained, and slept in a regular schedule. Karin was still pissed at the village as a whole, although several visits to Ichiraku had softened that anger slightly, but on the flipside, it only took a glimpse of silvery-white hair to bring the anger back, and it didn't even _have_ to be Kakashi or Jiraiya that she spotted. And Nagato was attempting to avoid Jiraiya, lest the sannin attempt to trap him in another apology about how things turned out for the trio of Ame orphans.

She wanted to go _home_ , to run on the waves the way she hadn't been able to since the day they left. To hear the gulls cry and the waves crash, and the familiar refrain of construction that would go on probably for the rest of her life as Uzushio was remade in the image of a brighter future. Sakura even wanted to hear Naruto and Suigetsu squabble, she wanted to spar with Tenten, she wanted to see her grandmother…

Yesterday she had gone to see her parents, the last people she had needed to apologize to.

They hadn't let her in the door.

" _We have no daughter," her mother had snapped through the wooden barrier. "And I have no mother. If they existed, they wouldn't have abandoned us without a word for a long-dead village._

Her father's chakra had been on the other side of the door, next to her mother's, and Sakura couldn't feel anything but hostility in either of their chakra systems. Admittedly, her sensor skills were fairly rudimentary, but the hostility was blatant, impossible to mistake.

Karin's shoulder bumped against hers once more, and Sakura focused on her breathing, reeling in her chakra and forcing it back into calm circulation and not the agitated waves that she had been giving off. It wasn't something most shinobi were aware of, not until they were experienced enough to be considered true veterans, but Sakura had learned it early on in her acquaintance with Karin. The Uzumaki was such a talented sensor that they had all learned to modulate their chakra, flaring it only when necessary. Even Naruto had learned the control, enabling his cousin to focus less on the people in the citadel and more on the island as a whole. For the first few months, until the returning survivors of Uzushio were able to tweak the seals that protected the island and raise them anew, Karin had been their sole warning system, outside of the civilians who lived in the fishing villages.

At least Kakashi wasn't here so she didn't have to look at his stupid masked face. Jiraiya was, but she wasn't particularly pissed with him, so seeing him standing at the Hokage's shoulder was less of a personal insult and more of an annoyance, because she knew how he had abandoned Naruto, had abandoned his team. Karin and Orochimaru had much more right to be angry with him, although she could be annoyed with him on their behalf.

A commotion stirred around the gates as arms started being waved in ways that were definitely supposed to be subtle signals but failed at it. The crowd tripled as shunshins brought the circling shinobi closer, and Sakura was just waiting to see signs welcoming the headwoman of Uzushio appear out of nowhere.

Orochimaru tipped his head slightly, and glided off towards the gates. Sakura hurried to take her place behind his right shoulder, Karin falling in next to her, as Itachi and Kyo brought up the rear and Nagato walked proudly at the snake sannin's left. The Hokage and her coterie moved forward as well, but allowed the Uzushio diplomatic delegation to reach the gate first.

It was a fairly small group; Sakura could easily spot Hoshigaki towering over the group, despite the nondescript travel cloaks. There was no disguising his bulk. The other three escorts were hard to identify until they drew close enough for Sakura to feel familiar chakra.

She wondered what they were playing at, rubbing in the fact that Uzushio now held the loyalty of the Kyuubi no Kitsune's jinchuuriki, but when she felt Tenten's familiar chakra, she realized that they had been brought so that they could make their peace with any whom they had left behind. The third escort was another of Uzushio's returned shinobi, a probable candidate for the council when one of the elders retired. Sakura hadn't spent too much time with him, but he had an incredible mind for tactics.

The entire group drew to a halt in front of the gates, and Sakura bowed politely at the figure standing half hidden behind Hoshigaki. Konoha's greeting committee seemed to think that Hoshigaki, who was clearly the most imposing of the group, might be the headman, but the joke was on them. At a sign from Hoshigaki, the quartet dropped their hoods, and beside Sakura, Karin was snickering at the shocked muttering that rose from the eavesdropping shinobi behind them.

"Uzukage-sama," Orochimaru said politely, stepping forward as Hoshigaki and the others split to reveal the headwoman in their shadows. "May I present to you Hokage Senju Tsunade? Hokage-sama, Uzukage-sama Konan."

With a sly grin, Konan dropped her hood, revealing the familiar kage hat underneath it. "I know we're not quite a major country _yet,_ " she said smoothly, ignoring how Jiraiya was gaping at her and elbowing the Nara head next to him. "But I feel that it's about time the smaller villages received equal standing. After all, we have many of the same concerns."

Sakura took great pleasure in listening to the stunned silence around them.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter Twenty-Six:**

From where she stood at the top of the mountain that housed the southern outpost, Sakura watched the ships coming closer.

A flare of chakra from below made her break off her watch, and she turned to greet her replacement with a grin as a familiar head of brown hair appeared at the top of the ladder from the rooms below. "Shimizu, I thought you were going to be delayed. Kumo sent word that the caravan you were escorting to the border had to wait for that mudslide to clear."

"The Raikage sent along a squad of doton users that he was able to free up," her former genin teammate said with a smile. "They took over with the merchants, and we met the Kumo genin at the port and hitched a ride with them."

"Word from the northern outpost suggested you'd get in...yesterday?" Sakura thought back to the news the messenger hawk had carried. It was sparse, just an accounting of ships, but enough. The jounin and Sasori were working on designing a mirror relay, to pass messages instantaneously up and down Uzushio's rocky coast, but it was going to take a fair bit of trial and error to make it actually work.

"Just in time for them to ship me up here. I guess they want you there for the chuunin exams?"

Sakura shrugged, waving to Shimizu's partner for the watch as he climbed up the ladder as well, somehow avoiding her former teammate. She suspected chakra use in the way his hands stuck to the floor of the watchroom. As he took up position at the large open windows that looked out over the sea, Sakura let herself drop through the ladder hole to the room below, ignoring Shimizu's protest as she did so. He release the ladder and landed with a soft thump next to her.

"Since I'm Kabuto's best field medic, they probably wanted me there in case anything happens so he can man the hospital." She hadn't unpacked much, knowing that there was a high chance of her being recalled from the outpost for the chuunin exams, given her status as a diplomat. Still, she found her things, mostly her scrolls from the various mentors she'd accumulated, scattered about the common room and sleeping chamber.

Her partner for the posting, Shin, was rolling up his bedroll when she entered the room, looking half asleep.

"Since your nap got interrupted, I suppose I could let you out of our bet," Sakura teased, rolling up her own bedroll and tying it neatly. Shrugging out of the haori she wore, given the temperature drop as you went up in altitude, she bared the seals tattooed on her arms and began sealing up her belongings.

"Not a chance Shiroyami," the older jounin replied with a grin. "You can't beat a man who ran this route before you were even born."

"You're getting old, oji-san," she snarked back, sealing her haori and the two long senbon she used to pin up her braid, letting it uncoil and fall to hang down her back. "Time to let the young ones get their names in the record books."

"Over my dead body," he laughed, sealing his own belongings into a scroll before slipping it into the pocket on his supply belt, next to his tanto.

Shimizu watched as they lined up at the top of the stairs, the path down to the ground nearly invisible, even though Sakura knew it by heart. "Okay, I'm going to count you down. Until I say _go_ , nobody takes a hand off the wall, or that's a ten second delay. Ready? Three...two...one...go!"

Sakura pushed off with her legs, jumping into thin air. Shin looked startled for a moment, she noticed as she looked over her shoulder, but headed down the path hidden among the rocks. Turning her attention back to her own fall, Sakura let herself savor the free-fall sensation, and then started paying attention to her timing.

Her pack had drilled her in this until she could do it half asleep and blindfolded. At midday, in familiar territory? This was as easy as walking down a road.

Angling herself, she touched lightly on the mountainside, redirecting her motion with a touch of chakra. While Shin was stuck taking the path, with its switchbacks and hidden ways meant to deter outsiders, she could bounce carefully down the mountain, allowing her momentum and chakra to do most of the work. If she did this right, which she fully expected to be able to, she would gain...two minutes maybe? It depended on if Shin had shown her his true top speed.

* * *

"That...was cheating," Shin informed her as he caught up to her outside Konan's office. Sakura was lounging in one of the chairs, flipping through a stack of advertisements that someone had left on the side table.

She blinked up at him innocently. "I broke none of the rules you set down," she murmured, fiddling with her braid like a shy civilian. "How can you accuse me of such a thing?"

"I've seen you gut a man with your _tessan_ ," her partner said flatly as they entered Konan's office after the secretary nodded her approval. "Your innocent act fails to impress."

"He was going to sell his daughter to a brothel," Sakura rolled her eyes. "That was a much less painful death than he deserved."

"And Ran is doing quite well in the Academy, according to her sensei's report," Konan said. "I see you two made it back in time for the exams."

"Konoha and Suna's ships have been sighted at the outpost, just before we left," Sakura reported. "They should be in the port by tomorrow night."

"Kumo and Kiri's delegations have arrived as well, and the watchers on the mainland side report that Ame and Oto delegations have stopped for the night in the village and will cross in the morning." Konan shuffled the papers on her desk and pulled one out. "Shin, you'll be assigned to the Ame delegation. Jiguro should be in the jounin lounge; he's heading up the delegation. Check in with him."

"Hai, Uzukage-sama." With a short bow to Konan, and a mouthed _rematch_ at Sakura, Shin left, and Konan turned her attention to Sakura.

"You're going to be the onsite medic for each stage of the exams," Konan informed her, passing her a list of names. "These are Kabuto's minions, the ones he approves of anyway. Check in with him if you have any questions about their abilities. They're at your full disposal during the exams, and all foreign delegations have been instructed to see you first while they're here."

"Do I get an office, or are they just supposed to find me?" Sakura scanned the names, recognizing most of them. About half of them were chakra-users, and the other half were civilians with wills of steel. She could work with that.

"You've been granted use of the ground floor conference room in the Crane Inn for your medical bay. Kabuto and Orochimaru supervised and approved the setup. A genin team rotation has also been assigned as runners." Konan passed her another piece of paper, with the names of three level-headed jounin on it. She knew most of them in passing, mostly that they had gotten the latest crop of new graduates from the Academy. All of their students were too green to be considered for the chuunin exams, but being in close proximity like this would give them valuable experience.

"Is there anything else you need me for, Uzukage-sama?" Sakura asked, already planning the rest of her day.

Konan waved her hand. "Go on, get ready. I know your apartment is probably going to be rather full tonight, given our visitors. Just remind Mori that she's overseeing the Konoha delegation so she'd better not be hungover tomorrow morning."

* * *

It was sunset by the time Sakura arrived at her apartment, having cheerfully passed supervision of her temporary office off to the most senior of the medics Kabuto had earmarked for her and one of the civilian nurses. Between the two they'd be able to handle anything that came in during the night, and if not that's what the genin runners were for.

Konan hadn't been wrong when she suggested that the apartment was full. Mei's bodyguard, the chronically disapproving Ao, was leaning against the wall outside the door, and only grunted at her as she waved before going by. Inside, Chojiro was looking increasingly red as Mei gossiped with Tenten, Karin, Yugito, and Fu.

"I didn't think Taki was sending a delegation to these exams?" she asked as she slipped her boots off and slid into her slippers, a luxury that she'd only been able to return to recently with the renewed trade revitalizing their economy. Biting her lip for a moment, she left her boots in place, rather than taking them into her bedroom. She'd move them later, in case of a nighttime emergency, but for now they were fine in the entryway.

"They aren't," Fu said cheerfully from where she was braiding Yugito's hair. "I heard there was going to be a party so I showed up. Somebody has to check on Kakuzu oji-san every once in a while."

Sakura raised an eyebrow at the girl as she accepted the sake that Karin passed her. "You call him Kakuzu oji-san?"

"It makes him look like he wants to murder something, and you get to watch him struggle to decide whether or not his shiny new hitai-ite is worth it or not," Fu grinned wickedly. "It's the best."

"One of these days he's going to remember that there's still technically a bounty out on your head and he might actually go for it if you push him enough," Karin muttered under her breath as she adjusted her glasses. "But you're just here because practically everyone else is."

"All the jinchuuriki?" Sakura clarified, and Yugito nodded, before wincing as Fu rapped her on the shoulder in punishment for moving.

"Bee's working with Naruto again, and I'm here to keep an eye on him when Raikage-sama has to do politics."

"They're over at Naruto's apartment," Tenten explained as Sakura sat down next to her. "Naruto, Bee, Suigetsu…"

"Juugo and Utakata are there to supervise, so it shouldn't get too out of hand," Karin informed them.

"I gave Utakata a genin team and it seemed to have worked out wonderfully," Mei volunteered from where she was lounging on the couch, sipping her own glass of wine. "Maybe I should try it with Chou-chan?"

The swordsman switched rapidly between bright red and pale for a moment before red won out. Idly, Sakura wondered when the Mizukage was going to let the poor boy off the hook.

A rap on the door gave the poor boy a break, as Ao reminded Mei that she had been invited to dine with Konan and the Raikage that night. She sighed, finished her wine, and glided out the door, Chojiro hovering in her wake. Once they had resettled themselves now that Mei wasn't taking up half the couch with her imposing personality, Sakura turned back to the other girls. "Want to hear how I beat Shin back by five minutes today?"

"Does this have anything to do with why you were seen running the rooftops on all three circles this afternoon?" Karin asked dryly. "If so, then yes."

* * *

The Konoha and Suna ships docked at the harbor that afternoon, and as head medic for the exams, Sakura was required to be present. Standing in Konan's retinue, she watched as the dockworkers, and the genin on port duty, secured the ships and their gangplanks. Suna disembarked first, and Sakura was amused to note that most of the shinobi seemed overly relieved to be back on solid land, even if it was just the docks. But the Kazekage had them moving with only a momentary pause, and Sakura was surprised to see how much Gaara had grown since her first chuunin exams. He walked confidently at the head of a group of shinobi, his brother at his right side, a part of the group instead of set aside.

"Welcome to Uzushio," Konan greeted him. "If you'll allow me a moment to introduce a few people, we can have you shown to your lodgings."

"Of course," Gaara said, bowing his head slightly. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you."

"This is Suoh Momeji," An older kunoichi with a backbone of solid steel stepped forward and bowed slightly at Konan's gesture towards her. "She'll be leading the team in charge of making your stay with us as successful as possible. Consider her your liaison; she should be able to handle any problems that may arise. And while we do have a full hospital, the head medic for the exams is Shiroyami Sakura. She and her team will be located on the ground floor of your lodgings and will be available to you at any point during the exams."

Sakura bowed politely as well, then stepped back as Gaara introduced his brother Kankuro as his liaison before following Suoh and her team down the docks towards the citadel. Konoha's delegation was assembling behind them, Tsunade's familiar figure at the head. What Sakura _didn't_ expect to see was the distinctive lichen grey shock of hair slouching at the Hokage's shoulder.

"Senju Tsunade, welcome back to Uzushio."

The Hokage flinched almost imperceptibly at the words, but recovered instantly and smiled at Konan. "Your recovery seems to have created a village more beautiful than the one I remember," she said. "Thank you for offering to host these exams."

"It is our pleasure. I'm sure you remember Koizumi Kyo, who will serve as your liaison while you are visiting us?"

"Of course. And I'm sure you remember Hatake Kakashi, who will be acting as my assistant while I'm here?"

For his part, Kakashi did a reasonably good job of hiding his absolute and utter desire to be anywhere else at the moment, but Sakura had made a study of human tells as part of her studies in genjutsu. Her former sensei looked miserable, and she saw his hand twitch towards the pocket of his jounin vest where she suspected his porn was stashed.

"And in the chance that anyone in your party needs medical attention while you are visiting, please feel free to seek out Shiroyami Sakura, our head field medic for the exams. The head of the hospital felt it better to operate a secondary clinic on the ground floor of your lodgings rather than subject anyone in need of medical attention to a strange hospital. Of course, Shiroyami will also be on site during the exams themselves so she can treat any injuries as quickly as possible."

As Sakura bowed politely, she noted that the ANBU standing just behind Tsunade seemed to be somewhat distracted, and she carefully tried to sense his chakra without causing any alarm. She wasn't an instinctive sensor like Karin, so it took a bit of effort to keep her touch light. But her suspicions were confirmed and she resolved to see if there wasn't a way she could diplomatically offer to show Shiranui around his clan's ancestral homeland.

* * *

The day of the first part of the exam dawned warm and sunny. Sakura had been up just before dawn, doing final checks with Kabuto of all their supplies and procedures before marshalling her bevy of medics and nurses, along with making sure their genin runners could be trusted to carry messages for them and report accurately.

Now it was just a matter of waiting. They had set up their roaming medical tent on the plaza outside the Academy, where the written exam was being held. From her place at the table in the front of the tent, she watched the genin shuffle nervously inside as their jounin sensei congregated outside.

She felt the slight flare of chakra as the Academy sealed itself, preventing anyone from entering or exiting as the exam was administered and settled back to watch the jounin. Predictably, as any group of bored jounin tended to do whenever there was any available event.

 _Take bets_.

It was probably good that Tsunade, Gaara, Mei, and A had been invited to watch the live feed in Konan's office with the smaller village's headmen and women, because Karin was taking her lessons from Kakuzu about finances to heart and working the crowd, running the book for the exam. Jounin after jounin drifted over to check the odds, place bets, and in general speculate about how the exam was going to be set up.

Konan had declared the exam structure to be need-to-know, so Sakura herself had only gotten the layout that morning at her pre-exam briefing. They had followed the traditional pattern of written exam, survival test, individual matchups, but what the genin and jounin didn't know was that _everybody_ would pass the written exam. Once they were suitably unsettled, they'd be set loose on the survival course, and whoever came back would be eligible for the finals.

Unlike the Konoha exams, there would not be a month between the second and third exams, so the candidates would have to decide whether or not they felt they had a chance to go forward. Going forward when you were at a clear disadvantage, for no reason other than stupidly trying to push oneself, would get you almost automatically disqualified from consideration for promotion. Konan had no patience for children pushed beyond their capabilities, and Sakura was willing to bet the other kages would agree with her.

A familiar figure broke off from the cluster of Kiri and Kumo jounin, one of the three larger clumps of jounin in the square. As Utakata drifted over to where Sakura sat, his hands in his sleeve where Sakura knew he stored his pipe, she reflected on the fact that Kumo and Kiri were reasonably tolerable of each other, as were Suna and Konoha, but Uzushio shinobi mingled freely with the smaller villages and the Kumo and Kiri jounin. It was unsurprising, given the ties that they had taken pains to forge with the smaller villages, and especially when you remembered that Uzushio had housed Kiri's rebellion, but Sakura sincerely hoped that eventually the entire group would feel comfortable mingling. Sure their jobs may pit them against each other, but there was no need to make it personal. It's just a job.

"I hear you have genin in the exams," she said as Utakata took the seat across from her. "Congratulations."

"They were almost ready when Mei assigned them to me," he demurred politely. "I simply had to polish them a bit."

"How's Saiken?"

"We seem to be working in better concert than ever," the jinchuuriki said with a slight, true smile. "It is...nice...to not feel so much like a jailor."

"Not going to place any bets?" Karin seemed as if she was making a decent haul, so long as if she'd written her odds right. She had been debating with Yugito the night before about the Kumo genin, adding that knowledge to her memory of the Konoha and Kiri teams she'd encountered.

This time, Utakata's smile was wry. "You seem to take me for a sucker."

"We do have a legendary one in residence."

* * *

The worst Sakura had to deal with during the first exam was a nosebleed that one of the Kumo jounin gave one of the Kiri jounin when he waved an arm and didn't realize the other man was behind him. And by the time she had made her way over, the bleeding had already stopped. All she had to do was hand out a bit of damp bandage and meander her way back to the tent.

Her position did give her a perfect view of the shell-shocked faces on the genin that came streaming out of the building. Each of them made a beeline to their jounin sensei, and Sakura could only guess what they were reporting. They had been told their scores individually, so there was no way for them to gauge the size of the group moving on until they'd been dropped in the holding room to get instructions for the second test and realized that there had been no reduction in the size of the group.

The bell at the top of the Academy tolled once, and the effect on the genin was instantaneous. They rabbited off towards their lodgings as if their world was ending, and Sakura saw a few split off towards the markets in the first circle. Signalling her assistants, she packed up the few supplies she'd brought to the medical tent and moved out with her group, leaving the tear down for the genin team it was assigned to.

Exactly an hour later, the genin were all assembled at the harbor, facing one of the council members, who stood with the assembled Kage and headmen behind him.

"This part of the test will examine your ability to complete a mission in unknown surroundings with incomplete information. Each team will be given a map of Uzushio's territory. Anyone who sets foot outside that territory is automatically disqualified from the test."

"Your mission is to reach one of the outposts that Uzushio maintains. These will be marked in blue on your maps. Each outpost has a unique scroll; the teams must reach an outpost, obtain their scroll, and return to the docks here with that scroll, unopened. The time limit for this exam is five days."

Sakura knew very well that the task could be accomplished in a single day, but she also know exactly why Karin and Naruto had been busy for the past few days, squabbling good naturedly over seal theory and tactics.

"To add a level of difficulty, there have been any number of traps laid along the way that are designed to trip teams or individuals up. Additionally, any team that arrives at the dock with more than one scroll will be awarded extra consideration. To be counted as finished with your task, all three team members must be present at the end of five days." The council elder eyed the group of fidgeting genin. "As we are a nation of islands, you may have to cross water to reach one or more of the outposts. It is technically possible to reach the outposts on foot, but there are certain places where boats can be taken from one island to the next. You will have to operate on the schedule that the owners of the boats set; any instances of threatening, property damage, or theft will disqualify the team. Monitors have been spread out over the islands to supervise, and will make themselves available as necessary to maintain safe testing conditions."

"As a reminder," Konan said quietly, causing many of the genin to twitch as they were caught off guard, "this, and all parts of the exam, are _non-lethal_ for all participants. Any genin judged to have used or attempted to use lethal force is automatically disqualified."

"Your exam begins when I call it," the councilman said firmly. "Please proceed to one of the six monitors in an orderly fashion to retrieve your maps."

Stretching, Sakura herded her medics back towards their field location at the Crane Inn. She knew Karin would be waiting for her there, monitoring the entire nation for the activation of the seals that the watchers all carry. They've trained for this, mapped it out over weeks without Sakura knowing what it was for, but she could see the use of it. If each shinobi carried a tiny seal that they could activate, and a dedicated sensor could track that activation, you could send backup and medics as soon as a team could be scrambled.

Right now they only had one sensor of that magnitude, but Sakura knows there will be others. Knows of Senju Tobirama and his Uzumaki blood that gave him a reach only surpassed by Karin. Knows that the Academy is screening for it, is teaching it to every student and making a list of each student who shows more than just proficiency. There are dozens of lists, dozens of specialties, each a dedicated attempt not to let Uzushio's arts fall by the wayside as the generations that still remember the citadel before retire and die.

Uzushio will thrive again, and Sakura has staked everything on making it happen.

* * *

The first distress call came six hours into the test.

"Mio, you're primary," Sakura called, grabbing her go bag as Karin whistles from her seat at the table containing a map of the island. The kages and jounin senseis seem to be rotating through sitting nearby to see how their genin are doing; right now Gaara was sitting quietly across from Karin, and there was a vaguely familiar Kiri jounin chatting with one of the medics. Out in the lobby, she knew there was a passel of Konoha and Kumo jounin ignoring each other, and she could hear the Uzushio senseis gathered with the ones from the smaller countries in the outdoor seating area that happens to be right under the window.

"North," Karin said, pointing at one of the red marks that littered the map, showing the veritable minefield of traps she and the other sealing proficients had set in tandem with the trap masters. "This one triggered ten minutes ago, the call just came in."

"What is it supposed to do?" she asked, trying to get as much information as she could.

 _Hold for an hour before releasing_ Karin hand signed with a glance towards their eavesdropping audience. None of the senseis or kages were supposed to have contact with the genin, but given that this section of the exam was spread out over the entire nation it was impossible to prevent.

"This shouldn't take too long then," Sakura murmured, and reached for the seal with her chakra. It was a modification on the hiraishin, a targeted movement through space and time that took minimal chakra for a jump and was only possible when the target seal was specifically activated. She and her team had practiced this until the chakra users could do it perfectly, and now it was as easy as a genjutsu for her.

When she landed, next to a chuunin she had partnered with for a courier run, she raised her eyebrow at the scene. "I don't see any injuries."

"Her teammates abandoned her," the chuunin reported, gesturing towards the trapped genin, who wore a Suna hitai-ite and looked terrified to be standing motionless on the open water in the channel between one island and the next, delicate sealing lines wrapping around her body. "Decided to do their best to complete the exam without her."

"Did they know what the seal did?" Sakura asked quietly, turning so the genin couldn't see her face.

The chuunin shook his head.

Fuming, Sakura handed over her go bag and moved to stand in front of the genin, whose eyes widened as she saw Sakura. "I'm going to release you from the seal, and then you're coming back with me," Sakura said gently, shedding her kimono shirt and passing it to the chuunin, and then carefully pulling off her sandals and giving them to him as well. "I need you to be ready to stand on the water when the seal releases you, okay?"

"Hai," the genin said, and Sakura let her chakra dissipate until she plunged down into the water, sliding her protective goggles over her face as she went. It was easy to find the seal anchor and press her master key to it, a sequence of seals that Karin had given her that would override any trap set on the course in case of medical emergency. Glancing upwards, she saw that the genin had managed to stay above water, and kicked off the seabed as she returned to the surface.

"We're going to head back," she told the chuunin, gripping the genin's shoulder as she accepted her belongings back. "I would clear out soon; the trap resets itself in five minutes."

A touch more chakra this time since she had a passenger, and Sakura was in the designated landing area, dripping all over the seal matrix carved into the flagstones while a group of jounin stared unabashedly at her. Rolling her eyes, Sakura marched the genin into the medical room and pointed her towards a bed, dropping her own belongings on her chair.

"What happened?" the Kazekage asked quietly, moving to stand by his genin.

"She got caught in a timed binding trap," Sakura explained, stripping off her wet tank top and grabbing one from the bag under her chair, uncaring of the eyes on her. Reaching for a fresh pair of pants, she reconsidered before reaching for a wrap skirt and a pair of spandex undershorts. "Her teammates left her, in the middle of the channel, with no consideration for her wellbeing. As head medic for the exam, I recommend disqualification."

"On what grounds?" the genin burst out, and Sakura wrapped the skirt around her waist before shucking her pants. As they landed with a wet _plop_ , she shimmed into the undershorts.

"Your teammates left you in what could conceivably be a hostile situation, trapped, with no understanding of how you were trapped. Even if they couldn't disarm it, they should have at least examined it. The timing mechanism is easy to recognize from similar seals, like explosive tags, but they didn't even examine it. For all they knew, you could have been trapped for _days_ , unable to feed yourself or keep yourself hydrated. Unable to prevent heat stroke, sunburn, frostbite...they basically consigned you to death. Fortunately, this was only an exam, and it wouldn't have held you for that long _because_ of those very reasons."

Shocked, the genin subsided, and the Kazekage sighed. "I will support their disqualification. Their sensei had hoped that participation would smooth out some of their rough edges, but it seems we have a long way to go."

Karin reached for a sheet of paper and beckoned one of the genin runners closer. "I'm going to need the team number so I can send a message to the outposts to hold them until they can be picked up," she said with a scowl.

* * *

The survival test had certainly culled the field. After the first disqualification based on the abandonment of one team member, Sakura and her medics were called rarely, since the proctors had been instructed only to intervene in life-threatening situations, or those where permanent damage might be caused if something was left untreated. Thankfully that wasn't often, but several teams were overambitious and attempted to split their team to simultaneously pursue outposts, and when one of them was invariably caught in a trap, it was difficult to regain lost time.

Thankfully, the Uzushio teams managed an excellent showing, and there was at least a single team from each of the other countries that made it through the survival test. While they rested for a day, the proctors turned in their reports, which were compiled and made available to the Kages, along with the medical reports that Sakura and her team presented after examining each member of the successful teams.

Combined with the test scores from the first exam, the Kages had a wealth of information with which to decide who would be invited to participate in the final round a week later. It was an unorthodox method, and relied very much on knowing the participants and judging whether or not they would even be eligible for a promotion at the time, but Konan and a number of the older Uzushio shinobi had pushed for it, saying that it combined the best of the major countries' Academy systems with the old Uzushio tradition of apprenticeships.

As Sakura watched the first match on the small screen set up in her medic waiting area, she smiled to see one of the Uzushio genin she had mentored in the art of water walking during the reconstruction period facing off against a Suna genin. For a moment, she looked around her and all she saw was rubble and destruction. But they had come so far since then, since all she had was dreams of a long-forgotten country, and she was determined that they would go even further.

Around her, the nurses and medics swapped odds and commentary as the two genin faced off, and Sakura leaned forward in her seat as the match began. Out in the arena, she knew her friends and adopted family were gathered, and most of Uzushio's population had made certain to make themselves available to watch this. If there was ever any proof that they had not only survived, but begun to _thrive_ , it was here, as the kunoichi bearing the trademark spiral planting her fist solidly into the Suna boy's gut, landing the first solid hit of the final exam.

For years she had thought that Uzushio was a place, a destination, but as she watched the two genin fight, she knew that it was that and more. It was a home, a family, a place of friendship and allies, a place where you could make a space for yourself and fit right in. It was hers, and like those who had fallen with it, she would give everything for it if called to, but part of her job now was ensuring that it never came to that again. Someday in the future, she knew her village would be threatened. Such things happened to all villages. But not today, not tomorrow, and not in her lifetime if she could help it.

 *****Okay, I know it's been a while. I'm sorry. It was really hard to wrap this up, but I've finally reached a point where I'm satisfied. There's no sequel for this one, if anyone was wondering. For the foreseeable future, I'm going to try and get some work done on my other two ongoing fics, and then we can talk about all the other shiny plot bunnies that have distracted me so. If you want to talk about those now, I'm over on tumblr as rhosinthorn, and I'm going to try to be more active there. Thanks for hanging on this long, and I hope you've enjoyed it!*****


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